


Of All the Stars the Loveliest

by DiazTuna



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-20 10:16:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11918772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiazTuna/pseuds/DiazTuna
Summary: She can remember it, if she puts her mind to it. The way the waves had hit the wood, the smell of the blue of the water. It should be impossible, Emma knows that. She’d been just a newborn when a fisherman with hands red with fish blood had opened the lid on her wooden coffin and let the Sun in. But she can still feel the way her lungs ached when he took her in his arms, how she’d cried even harder when he’d passed her onto someone with cleaner hands. She’d been meant to drown, a babe stuck in box. Cast away, left to whatever mercy the great god could spare.-Perseus and Andromeda-ish AU.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Art for ''Of All The Stars, The Loveliest...''](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11907780) by [delta2707](https://archiveofourown.org/users/delta2707/pseuds/delta2707). 



> Thanks to everyone who put up with me over my rants about this. Steph, Pleth, Emmi (Elmo), you are the real heroes.  
> To my lovely artist delta2707 who managed to make art out of an incomplete work! 
> 
> If there's anyone out there like me that needs a playlist to go with the Mood here's the one I made to write this fic:  
> [Playlist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M1eG2XPZhM&index=1&list=PLk_cBaVR-TG-Uje_V-nnpKrojZ0dKOOLt%0A)
> 
> I think it's fairly obvious to you guys but this is heavily inspired by Wonder Woman. I'm addressing some bits I did not agree with/did not go with original canon(meaning) in the movie.

She can remember it, if she puts her mind to it. The way the waves had hit the wood, the smell of the blue of the water. It should be impossible, Emma knows that. She’d been just a newborn when a fisherman with hands red with fish blood had opened the lid on her wooden coffin and let the Sun in. But she can still feel the way her lungs ached when he took her in his arms, how she’d cried even harder when he’d passed her onto someone with cleaner hands. She’d been meant to drown, a babe stuck in box. Cast away, left to whatever mercy the great god could spare.

 

“Poseidon himself brought you here, past the waves. Past the rock.” Andreas says pulling up the net onto the boat. “Onto the sand.”

 

Emma only hums in response as she notices that the net has come out empty. Again.

 

“Then why does each day out with you mean no fish in my net?” He lets his knife fall from his grasp and tosses the net to her. “Row us back, least you can do. They warned me about you.”

 

She says nothing as she begins rowing. It’s been fifteen years of this. Of feeling like one touch from the gods had cursed her.

 

“That girl’s got shark’s blood they said, no fish will come near your boat. I did not listen.” He says lying back.

 

Emma wants to ask why take her at all, she wants to tell him about the Sea during the storm. Of lightning hitting the water, how thunder seems to follow her footsteps. Instead she feels the strain in her arms as she takes them back to shore. She steps onto the sand and does not wait for Andreas’s last words to her. It’s no use, tomorrow she will doing something else to earn her keep. Today she is running to the other end of the island. Emma doesn’t want to be late.

 

She is out of breath by the time she reaches the shallows but it’s worth it, she beat her here. Emma allows herself to put her hands on her knees and drops her head in exhaustion.

 

“Late again, I see. My, can’t you read the Sun?” Regina says making Emma stand straight. Only the gods know where she came from.

 

“There will come the day when you are not the first here.”

 

“Hard to imagine such a day.” She says with that smile that has crossed onto arrogance.

 

“Ready?” Emma asks already ankle deep in the water.

 

Regina runs past her and dives headfirst into the clear of the water. Emma follows, she always follows. Soon they are far out, kicking to stay afloat. Like everything else in her life Emma can remember so clearly when she’d first met Regina. Seven years ago she’d come running from the very top of the island, Emma could tell from her bleeding feet. There was a cut on her lip but no tears. It’d been a cool day, close to dusk, just like today.She’d walked into the water, knowing it would sting and Emma followed knowing who she was. Daughter of a cruel woman.

 

“What are you doing?” She’d hissed masking the pain.

 

“You shouldn’t be alone,” Emma had replied shrugging her shoulders. “Better me than no one at all.”

 

“I suppose,” Regina had looked like maybe she hadn’t minded the burn of the salt in her wounds, hadn’t minded the waves being stronger than she was. “Come along then.”

 

“Where are you today?” This Regina looks at her with a familiar scowl.

 

“Here, I’m here.” Emma smiles because she knows Regina. She reaches for her hand under the water.

 

Her brow relaxes and her lips rearrange themselves into something Emma knows means danger. Regina untangles her hand from hers and goes deep into the water. It’s Regina’s favorite thing to do, disappear in the blue. As if she is begging the Nereids to take her away, away from this island forever. She has never asked what she expects to find down there, all Emma does is count down from sixty before she goes looking for her. She finds her midway, like she always does. Regina’s face is pale as she breathes in, maybe that’s what it’s all about. Reminding herself that she wants to keep breathing. Emma can understand that as she looks up at the white of the cliffs above them. She may not be able to go as deep as Regina but she knows her heart never falters up in those cliffs. Not even when her feet give away. And part of her, the part that flutters whenever she can feel Regina’s breath on her skin, does not want to be outdone by her.

 

“I’ll be right back,” Emma says.

 

“And just where are you going?” She asks scoffing in disbelief.

 

Emma nods up to the stone and whatever mirth drops from her voice.

 

“You can't beat the will of the gods, Emma!” She shouts as she swims away from her. Regina knows it’s no use trying to swim after her.

 

Emma makes sure to cover her hands in sand before she begins climbing the rock. Her feet already know each crevice, her fingers have a strong grip. She will not fall, she will not fall unless she jumps. It feels like the air before lightning strikes, charged and so restlessly quiet. The depths may not be hers but heights are, she looks down and sees the black of Regina’s hair on the water that shines orange. One deep breath is all it takes before she pushes herself off the rock and feels the wind rushing past her arms. It’s an odd feeling to be falling, plunging into the water and feel it’s where she belongs. It lasts only a few seconds and then the tips of her fingers are breaking the hardness of the water. Emma would do this again and again for that precious moment during the fall. Her mind is too clouded with it that she doesn’t feel herself not breathing, not until her feet are kicking and Regina is there pulling her up.

 

Emma coughs with her first breath and wonders looking at Regina. Wonders if this horrible thing is what she feels each time.

 

“You could’ve died!” Regina pushes her off  in the water. “Why would you do such a thing?!”

 

“Just wanted to know what it was like.” Emma tries to make it sound unimportant, like the whim that it had looked. “And hey, I didn’t. Die, I didn’t die.”

 

“If you had, I would have followed you to Hades to make sure you knew how stupid that little stunt was.” Her voice doesn’t waver when she says the unmentionable word, like there are worse things than calling that god to them. As if Regina doesn’t pray to rest of his kind.

 

“You would?’ Her words are not coming out as she means them. They aren’t meant to shake with uncertainty. Maybe it was the wind under her, maybe it was Andreas’s empty nets, knowing that tomorrow she could go hungry. That the ground becomes hard when she sleep too long.

 

Regina lurches forward and catches her lips with hers. They taste like the sea, the move like its waves. Slow and she wouldn’t mind drifting away. Emma was wrong, it wasn’t the air where she belonged. Not falling, this her place right here.

 

“Idiot.”  

 

* * *

 

The Sun is harsh on her eyes, it’s the worst time of day, when it sits high up on the sky and Apollo looks down on them. Sees himself reflected in the water and makes it impossible for anyone to move. It should have stopped Emma from running up to the very top of the island, to hide among the trees and wait for Regina. By now she has the bark of them memorized, like the moss covered statues in this abandoned garden.Just like she knows the sound of Regina’s sandals against the grass, quiet and barely there. Emma has it all down, she is sixteen and some things have begun to make sense. Most haven’t yet, but the change in the air for when Regina’s feet brush past the white and yellow of the flowers always does. Her knees almost scrape for when she jumps down from her tree.

 

“ I _hate_ this habit of yours of jumping off things.” And it’s just Regina’s way of greeting her, of worrying because she never even flinches.

 

“I know.” Emma says trying to close the gap between them only to be met with a sagging cloth carefully tied together.  “What did you bring this time?”

 

“Goat, bread. Olives, the usual.” Regina says as it doesn’t mean the world to Emma. As if she hadn’t been sneaking food out from her kitchens for more than days than she remembers now. Since Emma’s had fainted under this same Sun with her stomach sticking to her ribs.

 

“And your mother hasn’t noticed?” Emma asks leading them to their usual spot under a tree.

 

Regina shakes her head vigorously, enough to make her believe that maybe she is lying.

 

“Mother doesn’t notice many things.” She pops the olive she allows herself when they meet like this.

 

Emma takes a bite from her bread and feels something deep inside wanting to argue that point. Maybe Regina is so used to be in the lion’s mouth that she does not notice the sharpness of her fangs or perhaps she knows it all too well. But she says nothing.

 

“What do you think is beyond the Sea?” It’s the first time Regina has asked this instead of daring to go deeper and deeper. “Away from all this?”

 

“Rest of the world, I guess.” Emma replies gathering her thoughts. “We could...I don’t…know...leave?”

 

“Why did the gods bring you to this place then? Just so you could leave it?” It comes out in a whisper and Regina’s expression has turned somber. It isn’t that she is not aware of her mother’s sharp teeth, it’s that she has been bitten far too many times.

 

“Could be,” She lies because she has never wanted to know why Poseidon’s waves carried her here. “Maybe something has to happen in between?” Emma offers unsure of every word as she looks at Regina.

 

The black of her hair covers her eyes as she shakes her head, skeptical, but Regina’s smile, that she can still see.

 

“Eat, wouldn’t want your eyes going white again.” Regina tells her determined to leave behind whatever shadow had covered her.

 

“That happened _once._ ” Emma reminds her but still bites off a chunk of goat.

 

“I had to go fetch that Lucas girl of all people to help me bring you to!”

 

“And now her grandmother lets me help her at the market, it all worked out!”

 

Regina laughs and Emma lunges after her, kisses her through it all.

 

“Get off me, Swan. You taste of goat!” She isn’t even trying to push Emma away, not bothering to try and bite down her grin.

 

“You should’ve thought of that before.” Her hands are firmly planted on either of Regina’s head. All sorts of things are tangled in the curls of her hair, leaves, twigs and a petal or two. Maybe the rest of the world really is out there, beyond the water, but she doesn’t need to leave the island to know there is no one out there like Regina. No one as beautiful, like she is when she is laughing and hidden under the shade like this.  

 

“You’re disgusting.” Regina lifting herself up and pressing her lips to the corner of Emma’s mouth.

 

“But you like me anyway?”

 

Regina rolls her eyes and kisses her.

 

* * *

 

What possessed yiayia to be a merchant woman Emma will never understand, she doesn’t have the patience for it. She refuses to haggle in the marketplace, every time a customer goes lower she goes higher. Not that Emma is allowed to comment, she isn’t there to deal with people, Ruby handles that when yiayia isn’t looking. With her well placed laughs and small touches to wrists. Emma is just here to load off sachs from the carts, clean the fish and tackle any thief that might steal from them. Yiayia Lucas still turns up with more coins than Emma will ever be able to have at the end of each the week.

 

“People have to eat somehow!” She’d said when a man had walked away having paid three times what he had intended to pay.

 

The market is nothing special, all it does is make her restless when it slows down. Feel the strings holding her sandals together grow tighter on her, each drop of sweat running down her back. Sometimes when Emma forgets to be grateful, to remember that her stomach is full every day, she thinks she is missing something. Like this one place is ill fitting and she doesn’t understand it. Seventeen and not everything has an explanation. Emma knows better than to busy herself with thoughts that will never be resolved so she focuses on sharpening her knife on the stone. Something about yellow and blue sparks flying about makes the moment less foreign to her. The fish is cold under her hands and the wet spilling out of it reminds her of where she’d come from.

 

“Really yiayia?! These were HALF that last week!” Says a voice she recognizes enough to raise her eyes to it. Marian, Regina’s friend.

 

“Did Ruby give you that price, by any chance?”

 

“I don’t see how that matters.”

 

“That girl loves to make up her own prices,” Yiayia crosses her arms in defiance. “If you liked it so much you should’ve bought it on the spot!”

 

“Even then it was overpriced!”

 

Emma is entertained by Marian successfully keeping yiayia busy for more than a minute, in fact, too distracted to have noticed the figure standing in front of her.

 

“I don’t claim to be an expert, but I’d say that has been sufficiently cleaned.” Regina says tapping her fingers on her cutting board.

 

She has to blink because it isn’t like Regina to come to the market. With her it’s all about the island crevices and forgotten places. Never the bustle of the people, never in the eye of everyone else. The knife is put aside and Emma knows that there is a danger in letting any recognition show in her eyes.

 

“Don’t want it to taste bitter to whoever buys it.” She says like the fisher girl that she is. “What is your friend arguing about?” Emma keeps her hands to herself, her eyes downcast.

 

“Who knows? It might take quite some time, knowing her.” Heart pounding, Emma wonders if anyone else has deciphered her meaning. “I thought I would come look at the fish while they resolve whatever dispute they have going.”

 

“The fish.” Emma repeats and raising her gaze to meet Regina’s. Sometimes, just sometimes, she can’t keep up with Regina.

 

“I had a craving for it.”

 

“We’re an island, Re...Miss. I’m sure you could’ve found your share of fish anywhere.”

 

“Not anywhere, I don’t think. Not for this particular fish.” Regina smiles and it feels like danger. Like when before she goes into the deep of the Sea. And Emma finally understands and shakes her head as her neck grows warm.

 

“I had taken you for a patient person, miss. Fish would’ve been found it’s usual place.” Emma clears her throat. “For anyone looking.”

 

“Whoever made it seem is as if patience is one of my qualities is obviously a liar.” Regina tosses her hair over to her side without ever dropping her expression. “And besides, I do not think it so wrong to follow certain impulses.”

 

“No, no it isn’t. I’m glad you did,” And she knows she must be looking at her in that way that makes Regina tuck away whatever loose strands of hair Emma might have, lips parted and eyes soft around the edges. It leaves her breathless each time. “Eh, I mean, yiayia is glad. For the sale. The business.”

 

She moistens her lips and Emma wonders if it wasn’t Aphrodite who delivered Regina onto this island.

 

Marian comes rushing to her side with more bread that could be eaten in a day. “Did you get what you wanted?” She loops her free arm with Regina’s and winks at Emma.

 

“Not yet. Won’t you wrap it for me?” Her eyes are playful as her tone is innocent.

 

Emma can’t do much else but spread grape leaves and tightly pack the fish into it. She wipes her hands clean before she hands it over to Regina. Her fingers are gentle on her skin, carefully tracing her knuckles.

 

“Thank you..?”

 

“Emma.”

 

“Emma.” She echoes placing more coins than yiayia would find necessary. “Who would’ve thought you’d be so skilled at haggling?” She says loud enough to catch yiayia’s attention.

 

“Gods. You two.” Marian says with a fondness that makes Emma restrain herself from laughing.

 

Regina bits into her lips as Marian makes a show of pulling her away.

 

Emma begins counting down the hours to sunset.

 

* * *

 

Wine is the one thing Emma will accept is a gift from the gods and this one hadn’t even been stolen. It sits warm in her belly, above the bread and crumbled cheese. She lets the sand dance between her toes, feeling each grain rub against the hardness of her skin. It’s a good night to be drinking trying to count each star, each constellation, try and remember their stories. Wondering just who gets their story told when Apollo is gone and away.

 

“Anybody ever tell you got the markings of a dreamer on you, Swan?” Mulan says offering her their shared bottle.

 

“No. Just the makings…” A hiccups breaks up her words. “Of an unrefined shark.”

 

Mulan barks out laughing in a way that smells of wine and sweat and isn’t all that much like her. “What does that look like?”

 

“Like me, I’ve been told.” It’s the most ridiculous thing and she falls the ground stomach aching with pure and stupid laughter.

 

“You island people are strange.” She says lightly and just like that Emma remembers that Mulan is from somewhere outside. Beyond this place, proof that the World is out there.

 

“How?” Emma breathes in because she’s drunk on wine and needs to know. “I mean, how are we strange?”

 

Mulan shakes her head, probably thinking she will not like her answer. Emma prods her with her foot until she sighs.

 

“Your gods, I do not understand them,” She tells her carefully. “You are terrified of them.”

 

“I’m not!” Emma replies mostly on instinct, lifting her head to look her in the eye.

 

“You’re the only person who leaves shelter during a storm. You may be right,” Mulan shakes her head. “But everyone else. They pray too hard for their mercy.”

 

Emma thinks of Regina, arms stretched out to the sky. Of whatever silent prayer she offers when she lets the current take her for too long. Of the oil and milk she knows Regina spills for them, listing all the ways she serves them. Thinks of Regina’s scars, the ways her breath catches when she might see her mother’s shadow somewhere. She clenches her fists, feeling the bluntness of her nails against her palms.

 

“It’s all some people got. Asking not to be struck down.” It isn’t just Regina she has on her mind, it’s being five years old and looking for scraps. Bigger and stronger hands being raised too quickly against her.

 

Her friend is quiet and only the ocean breaks the silence. It’s snapping her from the warmth and haziness of the wine.

 

“Emma, listen…”

 

“It’s alright,” She breathes out and takes a swig from the bottle. “I know what you meant. They are horrible and angry bunch to worship.”

 

Mulan nods. “Too much like people.”

 

“That is the truth.” Emma replies feeling wine working its way all through her body. She laughs quietly knowing she hadn’t saying anything clever or remotely funny but she lets it wash over her. “What is it like? Where you’re from?”

 

“Larger than I remember, I’m sure.” A small and wounded smile is on her lips. “We cannot see our gods or plead to them. They just are.”

 

Suddenly Emma can see how their banging on the ground and talking to the heavens whispering names and good deeds must look to Mulan.

 

“Do you miss it?”

 

“Sometimes,” She grabs a fistful of sand and casts it in the direction of the water. “I left for a reason.”

 

“Yeah, yeah.”

 

A twig snaps behind them too purposefully to have been an accident and she turns her head to catch the intruder. She spins in her vision at first, but then it’s just the white of her cloak. Emma can’t think of anything else but Regina in the night like this, like she has never seen her.

 

“Marian said to bring three instead of two, whatever that means.” Regina says after clearing her throat.

 

“And that is my cue to go.” Mulan dusts herself off and pinches her eyes closed like she remembered something. “So much for the sparring lesson.”

 

“Next time.” Emma hears the slight slur to her words and smiles at them both. Time is quick to get away from her, no matter what she does.

 

“No wine next time.” She picks up her wooden sword almost losing her balance. “Regina.” Mulan turns on her heel and walks away from the shore.

 

“Sparring?” Regina asks raising her eyebrow.

 

“I might be good with a sword, you never know.” Emma may be drunk but she still takes the time to memorize every detail of her that will never be forgotten, especially out in the dark like this. “You didn’t just come here to give Mulan Marian’s message, did you?”

 

“Perhaps I did. I should leave.” Regina takes one step before Emma catches her hand and looks up to find her smiling.

 

“Evil.” She pulls her down to the sand with her.

 

“Quite.” Regina lays her head on her shoulder.

 

It’s not new but maybe it’s wind or the way her blood is running hot, it makes the whole of her feel _bright_. Emma doesn’t know what to call it, what this moment is. So out of the rules Regina had set up for them, so singular in all the time she’s known her.

 

“How are you here tonight?” She can smell the hyacinth in Regina’s hair.

 

“The King is having a feast tonight, mother wouldn’t want to miss it. Papa didn’t have much choice in the matter and I just wanted to see you.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“Still surprised after all this time?”  Regina murmurs against her shoulder.

 

She has nothing to say back to that because the truth is, a lot of the time she still is. That girl that had followed Regina into the water that first time believes, in the deepest corners of her, that one day Regina might turn around and say _I’m better off alone._

 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She tells her as if she’d been eavesdropping on her thoughts.

 

Regina’s eyes cut right through her as she gazes at her. Kisses her as to erase all doubt and Emma takes it without hesitation. All that she wants to give. She feels Regina pulling her down with her, slowly. And it seems to her that the whole world is bright like she is, like they are. Regina’s skin is smooth the way hers isn’t, cut only by ugly memories. Emma’s arms cave in and she falls on her.

 

“Gods.” Regina groans in pain through a laugh. “Graceful as ever, dear.”

 

“Sorry.” She says moving off her, trying to catch her breath.

 

“It’s just as well.” Regina squeezes Emma’s hand like she always does before leaving and she still isn’t breathing right. It feels like punch to the gut to see her getting up and combing her fingers through her hair. “Let’s go.”

 

Emma has blinks at her, not believing what she just said. “Where?”

 

“I remember you promising to let me see your house.” It’s just like Regina, to cling to words like this, to bring them up when she least expects them.

 

“I did, didn’t I?” Of course the memory is clear in her mind. Her fingers had been dirty with the clay and mud of the bricks of it. She had chased Regina into the water as she swore to destroy her if Emma got anywhere near her braided hair.

 

She stumbles as she stands up but this is all Regina, and the dark of her eyes and that smile that challenges her every time.

 

“Well?” Regina crosses her arms and taps her fingers to hurry her along.

 

“This way, lady patience.” Emma reaches for her, lets their hands fall together.

 

It’s a short walk to the house she’d made, built in a spot nobody had wanted. Too close to Sea, away from everyone. No one had claimed the land, like no one had claimed her. She figured that made it hers. Emma had been so proud when the mud and clay had set under the Sun, to have something finally be hers. But seeing it being hit by the moonlight, all its cracks and the part of the roof she’d been meaning to fix her stomach churns. With Regina’s hand in hers she thinks of the white and sturdy walls that surround her at the very top of the island. The courtyard at its center, the one she can only imagine. The well and the kitchen, but Emma isn’t about to break a promise. Her heart races as they step through the doorway, into the almost emptiness of it.

 

Regina untangles their hands and is careful to touch the brick. She rubs her fingers to her palms and is too quiet. Too lost in thought.

 

“I know, it’s not much or anything, really…”

 

“It’s perfect,” She sounds almost offended for Emma. Regina’s eyes are watery and her smile brittle. “It’s everything.”

 

Emma doesn’t ask why it is, doesn’t think she will be able to keep standing if heard Regina’s answer.

 

“I’ll get a fire going.” Is what she settles on saying, her voice shaking with the pounding in her chest.

 

Regina steals glances at her as the small burning red spot finally becomes a flame under Emma’s hands. She is sitting cross legged on the one rug in the whole place, lying back against stolen sheep’s wool. Emma had imagined for some time what this would look like, Regina within these four walls. In her mind it the place had seemed larger, cleaner. Two rugs instead of one, a wooden chest. She had always wanted to have more to offer, but in those dreams the image of Regina had paled in comparison. This Regina still has some sand sticking to her neck, silk off her shoulders and is fighting off a yawn with all her strength.

 

“What?” Regina asks with a tired but smug look on her face. Emma doesn’t have it in her to be subtle.

 

“I love you, you know?” Emma half whispers, words she never thought she’d get to say.

 

“I know.” Regina’s hand goes to her cheek before she lays a kiss on her lips. “But do you know? That I love you.”

 

She doesn’t wait for an answer, mends whatever thread had been cut at the beach. Regina’s fingers tangle in her hair and Emma knows without a doubt they are on the verge of something, like that second before she decides to push herself off a cliff. They had never dared, always pulling apart with wild eyes and chests that rose unsteadily. But tonight on the land no one had wanted, they pull their cloaks loose. See just where the Sun hasn’t touched them. Foreheads pressed together, catching each other’s name between breaths. Nothing can reach them here, not  people, not gods. Even if their fingers fumble, their mouths are too eager and their knees redden, this feels like the one sure thing in her life. Eighteen, eighteen and she feels like has discovered the secrets of the universe. She cries into Regina’s naked shoulder then, kisses her way up to her cheeks to taste the salt on them.

 

“I know, I know.” Emma whispers feeling an ache in her throat.

 

“I wish it could always be like this.” Regina’s smile is weak and Emma knows she is thinking of dawn. Of running uphill and climbing through a window before it catches her.

 

“What if I found a way?” She surprises herself with the words.

 

“How?” Regina tucks loose strands of hair behind her ear.

 

“Trust me.” Emma tells her because she feels strong here, because she knows of gods of faraway lands. If she can’t find a way then she’ll make one.

 

Through half dry tears, Regina manages to roll her eyes. The surest sign of her trust.

 

“You are unbelievable.” Her voice is hoarse but her smile is wide now.

 

“I could say the same about you.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

Regina feels her shoulders loosening as hot water is poured over her in the bath, she relishes feeling the heat dripping down her back.  How the stone has turned warm against her skin, and her legs feel heavy under the water. She will sit here until the water is cold and the tip of her fingers wrinkle beyond recognition. It’s what she likes best about mornings, soaking until she can see herself become an old woman. Closing her eyes and thinking of a life ahead, a life she prays will be hers. The particulars of it are always lost on her. She cannot picture the land where she would be, it resembles this place and its cliff too much to be hers. But she knows it feels like Emma’s heart beat under her fingers. Sounds like her laugh, and that is enough for her, to begin the day thinking of what may be hers. Soon, Regina has to remind herself. She trusts Emma, believes that her own sacrifices and whispers will carry them past the waves. Or at the very least, she has to keep her faith. Waver but a little and it could very well be denied to them.

 

With that in mind she leaves the refuge of the water and dries her skin. The girl waiting on her is quick to help her dress, wrapping her breasts in wool and folding a cloak around her body. She drapes a red piece over Regina’s shoulder, an addition to her attire and no doubt a direct order from mother. Her hair is picked up and braided to be held together, leaving her neck exposed, a departure from the way it flowed months ago. Regina wishes she could make sense of it, mother leaving the house with a different diadem every day, hosting gatherings with an abundance of wine and meat. Lyres being brought up to their gynaikon and mother’s voice ringing throughout the house. She is getting away from it less and less often, not that mother had ever allowed her to wander too much. Regina has always been skilled at building her life at the margins of mother’s. An hour here, an hour there, hours stolen from Morpheus.

 

Regina steps out onto the courtyard, feels the breeze brushing smoothly past her and takes a deep breath. Hera stands proudly in the shade, where Papa had placed her after stealing her from the temple.

 

“To hide her from Zeus.” He’d told her as she helped him set the statue straight. She’s always had the suspicion that Papa prays for Hera to shelter too, to cloak him from this life. Take him back to the land of his birth.

 

Fresh goat milk and oil so fragrant she can smell from where she stands will be her sacrifices. Regina lets them flow from decanters onto the stone, sparks olive leaves to burst into flames so the Mother might hear her prayers. She looks up to the sky, where Olympus must be watching and begins her line of prayers. She asks the Mother to remember her, to remember her daily sacrifices, how even if it wounds her deeply she is still her mother’s daughter. To never forget the blood she has shed through the prick of needles as she sows, the colors she weaves into her work. Even know she asks to be granted her favor, to hold strong onto to the love she and Aphrodite had given her. For the life ahead of her. Once she has run out of words, Regina looks at the goddess’s face, her calm demeanor. She knows all too well what expressions like that hide. Anguish and wrath. It’s all she has known, a well tailored mask to hold everything inside. One that is only cast aside in precious moments, ones she has counted dutifully over the years, and keeps hidden in the deepest parts of her. The color of Emma’s hair at dusk comes to mind and she sets off to weave it into a blanket, to keep her promises true to Hera.  

 

The day is always slow to move, the house never seems large enough. Her patience always begins to wear thin when shadows are longer under the Sun. Regina always sets her wool aside and drinks wine to temper her need to escape at every second. It’s all carefully planned and scheduled, she must not forget. Listen for the steps of Denes down to andron, for Andela pulling water from the well and the smell of fires being stoked, and it will be the precise moment in which Regina can finally breathe again. With careful fingers she unpins the red off her, gathers the silk off her feet, and undoes her hair. She is always quiet when she walks the hallways to the back of the house, going out the door would create an uproar among the neighbors. It is her sister’s room she uses to keep her coming and goings a secret.

 

It hasn’t changed much since Zelena left to be a priestess of Athena’s, there is still green coating her bed and her chest containing trinkets she had collected across the years. She misses her, Regina supposes. Even if all they had ever done was fight at every turn, Zelena’s for mother’s love and Regina for the freedom that had been so easily granted to her sister. However, Zelena had kept the secret that had mattered the most to Regina and that she could never repay.

 

“A fisher girl, sis?” How Regina had hated the way her lips formed into a mocking smile. “My, mother would punish that lack of...ambition? Or is taste?”

 

“Zelena, Zelena,” She’d said, ready to close her hands around her neck if need be. “You breathe one word of this, and I swear to all the gods…”

 

“Oh calm down, Regina. We’ve all got our secrets,” Zelena had put one arm around her shoulder. “Besides, now I’ve got something on you! Think of the fun we’ll have!”

 

“Please don’t talk anymore.” She’d told her with her head throbbing.

 

There were times Zelena’s eyes had narrowed too much around mother, as if that secret could be exchanged for affection and Regina had readied herself for the crumbling of her life. It never came and all she got were irritated remarks and rolled eyes as she used her sister’s window to leave the house. With a fondness she couldn’t have predicted before Zelena had been put on a boat, Regina shakes her head as runs her fingers on the carvings on her sister’s wooden bed frame. Perhaps they will see each other again, if all goes according to plan. She swings her legs over the windowsill and reaches for a tree branch to aid her jump. Regina isn’t like Emma, leaps do not belong to her.It’s the depths and swift feet that are hers. Feet determined to make it down to the shore, through all the forgotten passages, past the market and oars.

 

Regina breathes in the Sea when sand covers her toes and takes a moment congratulate herself. Still the first to arrive, after all these years.

 

It isn’t long until Emma comes running as if furies were after her.

 

“I swear, you must have bribed yiayia to keep me for longer. There is no way,” She sucks in a breath. “You beat me every time.”

 

“Have you considered that perhaps you are just slower?”

 

“You had a head start.” Emma groans.

 

“From the top of the island? You are grasping at straws.”  

 

She shakes her head, her hair falling from whatever loose string had held it together. Regina loves that, a smile is always born so suddenly with her. Like Emma just can’t help herself, it hadn’t always been this way. “Hi.”  

 

Regina kisses her cheek, feeling the heat still coming off her. “Ready?”

 

“Always.”

 

Not too long ago this would have meant running into the water until it was too heavy around their knees and diving in headfirst into the waves. Swimming until shore seemed farther away than the ends of the world where the Sun sets. Today it means avoiding splinters as their hands smooth down wood. It’s a crude thing, their boat. _Theirs._ Not stolen, not given, but built. With Cypress wood that Emma had cut during the day, crevices sealed together with wax taken from the woods behind Regina’s house. No boat on this island is like this, this is one is meant to get far. With a sail made from linen stitched together other many sunsets. By the safety of Emma’s house that is now fuller with two jars of wine and oil for that day that will soon come. It isn’t much more than a shell and a long and a plank at this point but nothing can compare to it.

 

The dust of Apollo’s chariot in the sky is finally settling and Regina will steal more time for herself today. Each evening she adds a little more, each evening she fears it being the day when too much has been taken. So Regina says her silent prayers whenever she glances at the strain in Emma’s arms and her teeth biting her tongue as she works. Some goddesses hear silent prayers, it’s easy to look at her and believe that. It has been long since her feet bled onto the waves and Emma, a child starved of many things, had promised to stay. And every day after that.

 

“Do you ever wonder what life would be like if we hadn’t met?” Regina asks her as she sits inside their unfinished of the boat.

 

“I try not to.”  Emma replies tossing away her hammer and joining her.

 

She lies down on where their jars would when they’re out in the Sea. Regina lays her head over her chest. Liking the way her beating heart, good despite every odd, feels against her.

 

“Why, do you?” Her chest vibrates against Regina’s ear.

 

“At times,” She sighs, it isn’t too hard to imagine. She lives through the moments when a smile is forced from her. “When the women are gathered around mother and talk of husbands. They laugh to hide unhappiness. And I…never...I cannot laugh at all.”

 

Emma’s arms grips her waist and holds her even closer, so gently Regina hadn’t even noticed the knot forming in her throat.

 

“You laugh all the time with me.” She says softly.

 

“Maybe not _with_ you, exactly. ” Regina swallows down whatever had been itching to burst from her.

 

“I..hey! I resent that!” Emma’s lips brush her forehead and she can feel the smile on her skin.

 

“Have you forgotten what happened not four days ago?”

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

“When you swore a sea snake had ensnared you?” Regina sniggers thinking of Emma thrashing in the water, claiming a twenty foot snake was going to eat her whole.

 

“That bastard Andreas shouldn’t be leaving out his nets floating around like that!” Her indignation is only for show. “Anyone could’ve thought…”

 

“That it was a monster from the depths?”

 

“Let’s see you getting your foot caught in one of those things and see how you do.”

 

“Touchy, aren’t we?” Regina kisses her jaw and laughs against her neck until Emma is too.

 

That is what she had been going for, the sound of promise. So unrestrained and untainted by anything, hiding nothing. It becomes impossible to tell when is the quiet settles in the air.

 

“It’s cold.” Emma tells her, it’s barely above a murmur.

 

“What?”

 

“Life without you,” Regina knows all too well what she means. For Emma it is not about imagining a life that could’ve been, but a life that was. Memories that drip down all the crevices of her mind and stick to them like honey. “It’s cold.”

 

The only thing to do is to close her eyes and bury her face in her neck. Pretend that this shell has become a boat and the waves are hitting the wood and the wax. That when they open their eyes again it will be morning and they will be somewhere else.

 

Regina steals more time than she had intended.

 

* * *

 

Sitting on stone, careful as to not ruin mother’s hand-picked attire for the day, Regina has to consider fate. How precisely things had lined up to allow Marian to pretend to whisper at her window, to leave the house when the Sun isn’t at its highest or about the be consumed by the water. The fine material of her cloak had been close to ripping when she’d made the jump this time, but it had not. That had been the important detail, everything that could have gone wrong today had not. Regina believes that this what hope may feel like on her, a lightness of heart. There is a clash of wood against wood and a grunt that makes her bite down smile.

 

It seems as if her idiot fisher girl truly is good with a sword. A wooden one, if that.

 

“Who do you think will win?” Marian asks her chewing on a grape.

 

Regina scoffs just when Emma trips over a rock and falls on her back.

 

“Mulan, then.” Marian knows just what to say to provoke her, the smallest tests of faith. Always with a sly smile.

 

Her movements are graceful and practiced as her the sword goes down, knowing it will be parried off by Emma. There is nothing delicate or swift about Emma,but her feet plant themselves firmly on the ground. Her eyes quick to see just what she needs.  

 

“What is like going about your day knowing how wrong you are?”

 

Marian’s smile goes wider as she pretends to shove her off.

 

“Ow! Mother of all…!” Emma shifts her sword from hand and shakes sucks on her injured finger.

 

“Grip your sword properly and that will stop happening.”

 

She removes the finger from her mouth only to stick out her tongue at Mulan.

 

“I don’t know why Mulan decided teaching her was a good idea.” Regina says far too amused by the exchange.

 

“Think she saw something she recognized in Emma,” Marian’s voice grows serious as her smile lessens in size. “How is your boat coming along?”

 

“It shouldn’t be too long before it’s finished.” It sits on the shore, larger than they thought it would be. Regina has been asking for a great wind on the day that will be here sooner than she knows.

 

“Have you decided where you’ll go?”

 

Regina shakes her head. “Where the gods take us.” She has faith that it will be a land that is nothing like this island. A place where no one knows her name, knows her as her mother’s daughter. Somewhere it does not feel like her life depends on silk threads holding together.

 

“So long as it’s away?” Marian does not sound wounded but there is something in her voice that gives way to a certain sadness.

 

“I’ll miss you.” Regina tells her suddenly realizing that there are some things, deeply loved things, that will have to be left behind. She presses her lips together and watches Emma duck to avoid a blow from Mulan, wondering just what are the things she will be missing.    

 

“You better,” She sighs and bumps her knee against Regina’s. “You were always meant to leave. Don’t feel guilty on my account.”

 

“Do you really believe that?”

 

Marian nods. “You always had this look about you.”

 

“This look?” Regina raises her brow not knowing whether to take offense or not.

 

“Like you wanted the world and none of it.” She nods in Emma’s general direction.

 

Her breath catches because Marian is right, all she ever wanted was the life gifted to others but not to her. Not to them, but rejecting the price that came with it. Not wanting to belong to this place and sink into its background of white stone and pale green.

 

“I really will miss you,” Regina clears her throat. “Insufferable as you are.”

 

Regina hears the shuffle of tired feet and of sword being dragged on the ground. Emma collapses on the ground next to her and lays her head on her lap. Regina combs her fingers through her damp hair.

 

“So, who won?” Mulan asks after taking a swig from the pouch Marian had offered her.

 

“Emma did.”

 

“You did.”

 

Regina and Marian reply without a hint of hesitation.

  


* * *

 

A clear sky the first thing Regina searches for every morning. It’s grey still, thin and cutting raindrops are falling just as they have for days now.  Barely dressed she runs to the courtyard to beg to the Mother, pray for clear skies and strong winds. She adds wine to her sacrifice, two more lines of prayer and yet another promise. Her hand goes to her chest in supplication.

 

“Barely out of bed and already at your prayers, Regina?” Mother says from behind her.

 

She tries to still her pulse, keep her secrets from showing on her expression. But mother, mother always has a way to rip it all from her.

 

“I have many things for which to be grateful.” She only just manages to keep the tremor from her words.

 

“Do you think it was mistake to send your sister to temple instead of you?” Her eyes inspect her sacrifices and the way Regina’s hands close around each other.

 

“No, mother,” She replies with the answer mother expects. “My place is here.”

 

“So it is.” Mother takes a strand of her hair and curls it around her finger. “You are to come with me to the King’s feast tonight.”

 

Her heart shrinks inside her chest before she remembers that the Sun could bring with it the end to this. If the gods will it there will be no feast tonight, mother will look for her only to find her gone. It’s that knowledge that grants her strength.

 

“Is there a special occasion, if may I know?”

 

“That is to be determined, but my hopes are high.” Mother rubs her thumb on her chin “Yours should be too.”

 

Regina may have grown taller than mother two years ago but the way she looks at her makes her feel like she has barely learned how to stand on two feet.

 

“Have the girl scent your skin for tonight, Regina.”

 

“Yes, mother.” She says dutifully like she always has and loathes herself for it.

 

“That’s a girl.” Mother smiles and leaves her alone with Hera.

 

“Please.” Regina whispers to her. A trick of the morning light makes it seem as if there is a frown upon her face but the shadow passes. It’s her usual mask of serenity that looks back at her.

 

The day drags across hours of her silent supplications to every goddess, appeals to Apollo’s good nature. Like every day since their hands had been working with wood and wax Regina searches for her father. Each visit may be her last, once she is gone there will be no returning to this house that has for so long kept them trapped together.

 

“Papa.” Regina calls to him as she enters the andron.

 

He looks up from his reading and smiles at her. She had always liked to believe that whatever tenderness she has it had come from him, like the black of her hair.

 

“My sweet girl.” He says and beckons her to join him. “Don’t you look lovely today?”

 

“You say that every day, papa.”

 

“It’s true every day.” He tells her warmly, unchanged throughout her years. It was this that had tricked Regina into believing she had ever wanted to stay in this house at the top of the island. His kind hand over her reddened and cut skin after mother had left him to pick her up.

 

Regina kisses his cheek and his expression falls, as if he had only remembered something.

 

“Something the matter, papa?”

 

“No, My Life. I just feel old looking at you.” He holds her cheek briefly. “Did your mother tell you about tonight?”

 

A deep and sudden chill goes down her back because papa had always tried his best to keep her away from the King’s halls. He had taken her place many times, kept a line here and there his prayers. Regina has been hearing the low and secrets words for some years now.

 

“What is happening tonight at the feast?”  

 

“Nothing is set in stone, it’s important to remember that.” He reaches for her again but Regina gets to her feet.

 

“What does that mean?” She feels sick as the pieces come together without her will. The pieces she had chosen to ignore as the Sun rose in the sky as mother spoke.

 

A weary sighs escapes him and his eyes are cast downward. “May Hera forgive me. I could not hide you from him like I did her.”

 

“Papa...please.” Regina desperately wishes to be told a lie, forgetting all about linen sails and the waves as fear invades her.

 

“Your mother, she has always had plans for you,” He wipes away a tear and she feels as if her life’s thread may suddenly snap. “The King is to notice you tonight. Take you as his bride.”

 

There is a deafening sound coming from inside her, as if a chord had been cut mid song and the song cut short still bounced off the walls. Papa sounds far away, she cannot discern his words if there are any. Maybe they’re apologies, begging for forgiveness but she is deaf to them. Specks of black invade the room that now feels too small and all Regina can think is to run.  Let her swift feet carry her down where to it’s safe, where papa’s confession does not make a difference. To cracked clay bricks and the lone rug on the sandy floor. Regina perhaps feels sandals split as she runs, rocks cutting into her feet. It matters very little, all that is important that walls with Emma’s hand prints shelter her.

The house is empty, she knows this even if she can hardly see. The rug barely cushions her fall and her fingers grasp at Emma’s sheep's wool pillow. One she had she pricked her finger knitting together. Regina can hear herself crying as she can the waves outside, the ache in her throat scratches her insides.. It is easy to lose track of time this way, drowning in a way she had never expected. Mother, mother who doesn’t know about their boat with crooked pieces of wood and blankets for the night’s breeze knowingly breaks her spirit. Papa, papa who she wants to forgive but cannot. If she had the strength she would ask the goddesses for a reason, why when they hid from their brothers and husbands do they leave her now? She wants to curse but words break and break as she as she feels herself drift away.

 

“Regina…”Emma’s voice gently pulls her out of the depths. Her arms encircle her waist and her nose nuzzles her neck.

 

It’s all she says as they lie together longer than they ever have. Slowly things takes begin taking shape, to feel real again. The shadows have moved and she has never seen them looking like this here. Her mouth is dry and her eyes burn with all that she has left. Emma kisses her temple and Regina remembers that all her said and unsaid prayers have been about her. For her.

 

“We have to go. Today.” Regina tells her hearing how the waves have picked up the wind’s anger.

 

“Alright. We’re going.”

 

* * *

 

Under the grey of the sky Regina washes her feet in the sea and feels that familiar sting. She never strays from the water as they walk around the island to get to their boat. Left hidden after it had its build tried by strength of the Sea. It’s the sting of the water that keeps her walking, reminding her that this it’s all real. It feels like a bad dream and like waking up from one all at once. Her skin is hard when the wind hits her and her fingers are in Emma’s grip. Regina has to trust that this is the time, despite the look of the whole world. These are not signs, these are tests of her resolve. She has to believe that, needs to as Emma’s hair gets to be the color of the blanket she had woven as a promise. Promises mean something, the Mother would surely keep hers.

 

“Almost there.” Emma tells her with a small smile that is meant to be reassuring.

 

Regina nods feeling an emptiness to her stomach. It’s old and familiar, as if it’s here to remind her of the way things have always been. A voice that sounds like mother’s when she’d been a child speaks of fate and wonders if Regina is brave enough to test it. Asks her to look at the clouds, her injured feet, feel Emma’s calloused hand in hers. Question if this is really what Emma deserves, the open Sea and the uncertainty of where the winds will take them. Doubt, doubt that Regina has any right to want a different life. To reject a throne she has never seen, let alone wanted. If it weren’t for Emma leading her across the sand, away from any eyes and voices that would follow them she isn’t sure she could’ve heard a different voice. It asks her to be strong, to keep her faith. To trust, always trust that this what she is meant to do. Hers, theirs. Theirs alone. Regina tries to hold on to it, even if it feels like it slips away from her with every step. Even if the emptiness only grows and grows.

 

“What...what is that?” Emma asks squinting and pointing towards the end of the shore.

Regina’s eyes turn to it, it looks like the King’s palace every time there is a feast. A great column of smoke.

 

“Fire. It’s fire.” She says dropping Emma’s hand and running towards it.

 

“Regina, wait!”

 

She knows in her heart what it is she will find once her feet come to a halt. Still, she has to see it with her own eyes. Good needs faith, bad just need confirmation. It’s not true in the minute it takes her to arrive to the most secluded place they both know. The one with rocks that Emma had assured her wouldn’t damage all their hard work on the boat, the one no islander would dare to look in because it looks too much like Hades walks there. And she had believed and trusted, never once questioned that all these were true. But it’s there, being consumed in red and orange.

 

“No, no!” The sand scratches her wounds as she kicks sand into it. “NO!”

 

Her skin grows hot, the tip of her toes hurt and her hands become red as she gets closer.

 

“Don’t, don’t!” Emma’s arms wrap themselves around her waist. It’s only then she realizes how close she had been to being burned, sees the scorch marks at the end of her cloak.  

 

Her knees buckle and she brings Emma down with her. Her hand forms fists around the sand, she smells the smoke, feels the sweat dripping down her back. All undeniably, all as real as Emma’s breathing against her back. It is all very clear to her now, it had been since dawn. Each and every piece lined up clearly for her and she had refused. Regina had fought it and all she had to show for it will soon be ash.

 

“We’ll find another way.” Emma breathes into the back of her head. It’s gentle and determined, the way it always is. But all Regina can see is the red of the fire, how the wood cracks and becomes black with it. Each crackle feels like a chisel at anything that could have tempered this terrible anger growing inside her.

 

“There _isn’t_ one.” Regina spits out freeing herself from Emma’s grasp. “That was it. Our one way off this island and the gods…”

 

“You think the gods did this?!” Her eyes are hard they way they never are. Haven’t been for years.

 

“Who else could it have been, Emma?!” Something rises up in her throat, something that shouldn’t be. Regina can’t help it.

 

“I don’t know!” Her hair takes the color of fire and Regina has to look away, even for a second. “Does it even matter?”

 

“What is that supposed to mean?” The emptiness is threatening to spill out from her, to leave only room for all the ugly things growing inside her. For the burning and tightened fists.

 

“So what if it was the gods that did this?!” Her voice becomes rough as it rises against everything else.

 

“Emma…”

 

“No! I don’t care how this happened. I don’t want to sit here and wonder what it means!”

 

“How can you say that?!” Regina goes back to spilled milk and oil. To burnt leaves, to the breeze and shadows that she had known had been answers. To Emma, who doesn’t even think as herself as anything close to a blessing.

 

“Because it sounds to me like you’re giving up!”

 

“How dare you?!” Regina kicks sand all over as she stands up. “ It’s the gods...”

 

“It’s no different!” Emma chest is rising as unsteadily as her own. “I had to pull you away from the fire and now you’re telling me it’s all over?!”

 

“It's not like that! Just listen to me..!

 

“ _Fuck_ the gods, Regina!”

 

Rage fills chest and she can can feel her chest growing smaller. Because Emma should understand, she knows how much she begs for release. To be allowed to step into the waves and never return, but she is still kneeling on the sand, glaring at her. Blaming her for what had happened to their boat, to what will happen to their lives. Night isn’t far, her skin will have to be scented soon. Her feet oiled and masked. Her hair braided again to be offered up. There is no escape now. Prayers will not help her. Regina turns on her heel feeling her throat closing up.

 

“Where are you going?!” Emma shouts after her, in disbelief that she would truly walk away.

 

“Away from you!” It sounds angrier than the anguish she feels.

 

* * *

 

The King’s palace makes her life feel cheap, with the red and blue of its walls. Her life’s worth defined by the flat of the art on the walls, orange with lies. Telling her stories of battles that belong to others and not to the King. Far away from her sits a stone carved throne, two Sphinxes to hold the King’s arms. Lyres, wine, goat, fish, boar. More than anyone could eat, grapes rolling on the ground. Laughter clashing the sound of sandals against marble. Regina blinks and blinks hoping it will come to an end, it’s all she has the strength for. If it weren’t for mother’s arm her waist she would have collapsed, her mouth and eyes are dry. Her throat aches and she is cold despite the warmth of the night. The wine mother has forced on her just makes her miss Emma’s arms around her, breathing in the sweat and Sea from her skin. From where she had used stone to scrub the fish. Perhaps she shouldn’t have walked away, shouldn’t have left Emma kneeling on the sand watching her go. Standing here by the fire Regina swears she feels something within her move, that same thing that had taken over her at the beach and made her kick sand into the flames.

 

“Regina, look a little livelier, wouldn’t you?” Mother comes short of pinching her cheeks. “The King will hardly take notice of you with that sour expression on your face.”

 

Try as hard as she can her lips do not become a smile and she does not laugh. She can’t, just as she told Emma on that night that seems so long ago now.

 

“Must I do everything for you?” Mother drops her arm and straightens her cloak. Finer than hers. “Perhaps I did make a mistake. Zelena would have know better than to be ungrateful.”

 

It feels like the knife to the heart it had meant to be and Regina braces herself against the cold stone of the pillar as mother leaves her. She strides past all the people invited here to celebrate whatever it is the King had ordered today. His daughter’s nameday, she had heard some say. Seeing the girl dancing near the throne makes her feel sick, she is barely younger than Regina is. And her father, the King, with white hair crowning the side of his head and wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Is this something meant to spread out her arms to the heavens in thanks? Would her sister, with a tongue even sharper than hers, have thanked mother for her love now?

 

“My King!” Mother’s voice is booms throughout the feast and the hall goes quiet with it. “I want to thank you for opening the palace doors tonight to share these most gracious spread!” There is a murmur of agreement from the crowd.

 

For a second Regina is astounded by her mother, the talent she poses to wear a mask so easily. For so long that she no longer knows what is her true face, her eyes are shining and her smile is open. All crafted without a second thought, and she has to wonder just why she had been born her daughter. When she could never be more than that thing living in her shadow.

 

“It is known that Your Majesty is in search of wife. A mother for the Princess, a Queen.”  There is more agreement from the crowd. Their voices sound deep and old, all the fathers with daughters to give up have gathered here.

 

“What do you propose, Lady?” The King replies taking his seat at the throne that seems to swallow him whole.

 

“That you choose your Queen tonight, Majesty. For the whole of the island has gathered here.”

 

The room is going dark and the world sounds faraway again. The wine sits hot in her stomach and burns her throat. Regina feet itch to run again, beat Emma to the water one last time. Swim until their arms give out. She dares to step away from the column holding her up only to feel a calloused hand around her wrist. It pulls her away from the fire and the expectant quiet of the room, into an empty corner. Chipped nails run softly down her skin until their fingers are interlocking in their same way. Memorized from when they were last children.

 

“Is this why we had to leave today?” Emma’s voice is a harsh whisper. Her eyes brimming with tears.

 

“Yes.” Regina realizes hers must be too by the way she chokes up.

 

“Why didn’t you...why didn’t you say?!”

 

“And what would that have changed?!” She knows her face has flushed red and feels a deep hurt in her chest. “The boat would have still burned, we would still be standing here!”

 

“I could have…”

 

“What? What could’ve you have done, Emma?” Her voice is low and finally given way to defeat.

 

“I...I don’t know.” She squeezes her hand.

 

The desperate look on her face is enough to pull her into her arms and rest her head against her shoulder. One last time, that voice that sounds like mother’s whispers in her ear.

 

“And why not my own daughter, Majesty?” Mother’s voice asks loudly from across the room. “My daughter’s beauty has no equal in this island. Certainly in every city in our nation! More beautiful is she the Nereids that live in our Sea! She was born in the skirts of Aphrodite herself!”

 

Regina lifts her gaze to see mother standing by the foot of the throne with a straight back, not a hair out a place. Looking every bit what she expects Regina’s future to be, who she is meant to become.

 

“Your mom is a piece of work.”  Emma says sounding almost out of breath.

 

“I know.” She replies with a laugh that had died midway.

 

Regina will steal all the time she can tonight. Surely Morpheus would not miss those hours and there will be no more dreams after tonight. She pinches her eyes shut and pleads with whoever may be listening one last time. Suddenly there is the roar of the Sea rising above the palace sounds, as if the waves had managed to rise to the very top of the island. It gets stronger and stronger until everyone has gone still, listening to this thing that shouldn’t be. This thing that can’t be. It smells of salt and the air is brisk, as if the might of the Sea had burst in. People begin screaming and asking to be let out as water floods the palace, extinguishing the fire in the middle of the room.

 

It’s when he appears, with skin the color of sand. Part of his body is covered in scales and stone. His hair is all black curls that look as if they are floating in water. Regina knows who he is with his stormy blue eyes.

 

“Mortals should not think of themselves mightier than our children,” Poseidon’s voice sounds like the tide during a storm. “Let alone proclaim their children more beautiful than those who live by our side.”

 

They are pressed together, their heartbeats racing together watching the god move towards the throne. He laughs when he sets his eyes on the King who seems to be made of the same heaviness as his throne. Shakes his head in disbelief as he looks at mother with her open mouth.

 

“No answer? Tell me woman, where is this daughter of yours? The one the Nereids screamed into my ears about? More beautiful than all of them? Born from in the skirts of my niece? From the foam of my Sea?”

 

Mother says nothing as her eyes search for her, her finger would have been raised against her had she been able to find her. Regina knows this to be truth.

 

“I suppose I’ll find her myself.” He raises his hand and a wave envelops Regina and Emma and pushes them apart. It does not feel like when she goes down to the depths to try and be heard by him. By the Nereids, it’s painful with no promise of ending. Water carries her to him and drops her at his feet.

 

“Her beauty is an exaggeration, but not a lie I see.” Recognition flashes in his eyes and Regina feels like she is about to be sick. It's cold under his gaze. “Still, an offense is an offense. It cannot go unpunished.”  

 

Regina feels her bones crushing her insides as she hears his words fall on the silence of the room. “In three days my monster will come to destroy this island. He will come for all of you, for your flock, for your vineyards. For your children, for this palace. He will not stop until he is satisfied. His thirst could only be quenched without any of this carnage if you sacrificed this girl to him” The god pauses to examine the terror he has instilled in his people. “There is a way to stop him altogether but I take it no one…”

 

“I’ll do it!” Emma’s voice comes from the back of the hall. Regina can’t breathe hearing how she makes her way through the water to face Poseidon. Heavy and steady her steps are, she’d known them anywhere. “Tell me how and I’ll stop him.” Her eyes are unafraid to glare at him.

 

He smiles like he had predicted this. “There is an island farther than the edge of the World. A creature lives there, all who look upon it turn to stone. Cut its head off and use it to save this...island.”

 

“Fine.” Her hands have balled into fists and he seems amused by it.

 

“Remember, three days is all you have. And should she not be offered up to him, he will destroy this place.” Poseidon nods towards Regina. “It is truly a pity that he will have you all to himself.” She feels heavy enough to sink to the bottom of the Sea never to be found again.

 

He turns into a swirl of water and takes breeze and salt with him as he disappears into the night.

 

“Regina…” Mother begins but she runs out of the hall before she can finish. Water drips from her cloak and her hair has been loosened and it still hasn’t quite set in. That a god had risen from the water to come claim her life. She realizes that there is nowhere to run, not even Emma’s house will do tonight. But she keeps running anyway.

 

“Hey, hey. Regina!” Emma catches up with her. “Slow down!”

 

She turns around to find her giving her a weak smile and eyes too soft to have just defied a god.

 

“You _idiot._ You are going to get yourself killed fighting the will of the gods!”

 

“Better me than no one at all, right?” She is shy approaching her, the way she hasn’t been in years. Her fingers tentatively reach for hers and it feels like the first time. When they hadn’t been much more two girls in the Sun.

 

“This is your worst idea yet.” Regina’s forehead finds hers, still wet from Poseidon’s fury. “I love you.”

 

“I remember.”

 

Regina kisses her and doesn’t want think about how many times her lips have brushed hers. They would never be enough no matter how many.

 

“I have to go now.” The words are barely there.

 

“I know.” Regina replies yet she does not move.

 

“I’ll be back in three days.” It sounds natural, like going out to sea to catch fish.

 

This time she nods and lets her slip from her grasp.


	3. Chapter 3

It occurs to Emma walking down from the very top of the island that it is not an easy thing she had promised to do. It isn’t like carving a boat and hitting her thumb with hammer too many times. Regina is right, she is an idiot for thinking she could do this. She keeps her pace fast, never as fast as Regina’s, even if she doesn’t have the first where she is meant to go. How she is supposed to get there at all. 

 

“An island farther than the edge of the world. What is that supposed to mean anyway?” She says to herself feeling the back of her neck grow warm. 

 

Regina, she has to save Regina. It’s what keeps her moving and not think about a god breaking up the King’s feast. The way his eyes had run all over Regina, his smile when he spoke to her. She wonders what it is that he saw in them both, maybe he remembers Emma’s wooden coffin and Regina’s face from the many times she had gone to the depths to be heard. Gods don’t answer prayers, Emma thinks. They only listen and come to strike them when their pride and children beg them to do it.  Fuck the gods.  She reaches the abandoned garden and wants to cross it faster than she ever has. She cannot think of noon, olives and dreams being said aloud here. It was all going to be ripped away from them one way or another. Fire, monsters. 

 

“Fuck the gods.” She repeats like a prayer. 

 

Thunder and lightning rip through the clear night sky and something sparks inside her blood. She has never understood it and tonight she doesn’t want to. Her feet kick up dirt in the garden, overgrown grass cuts at her legs as she tries to leave it behind. 

 

“Careful with your mouth, my child.” A deep voice says from somewhere behind her. It’s loud and seems to take over the quiet of the night. 

 

Emma comes to a full stop, not wanting to turn around. She knows this garden is always empty, there had been no one here as she ran through it. 

 

“I’m no one’s child.” She replies and takes two steps forward. 

 

“That is what you have made to believe. The truth of the matter is quite different.” He sounds like he has moved to the opposite side of her. 

 

Emma sighs and grabs at the damp linen of her cloak. “Listen, I don’t have time for riddles. There is somewhere I need to go and I really don’t know how…” 

 

“The island of Cisthene. Beyond the World’s end, is that how my brother put it?” 

 

Emma turns on her heel to find the garden just as deserted. “Wait! Come back! Who are you?” 

 

“I would have thought any daughter of mine would have known me by voice alone.” He says suddenly appearing in front of her eyes. His hair is white and his eyes are deep grey she cannot look away from. “I am Zeus, your father.” 

 

Emma steps away from him and shakes her head. Her empty stomach burns as she looks at his pale skin. “It’s not...it’s not true. I washed up on shore...it was Poseidon who..” She has no father, no mother. 

 

“Ha! My brother merely calmed the waters for you. It was my winds that steered the course. I would not have abandoned my child.” 

 

Her jaw locks thinking of her own hair tangled so badly from neglect that it had been cut with a knife when she had turned five. Remembers feeling herself grow thinner and dirt under her nails from where she had dug up roots to eat. Emma can still feel her dry and broken lips as she felt her blood move with the thunder and the raging storm. How she had desperately begged for bread and drink and all she had gotten was rainwater flooding into her shelter. 

 

“But you  _ did.”  _ She tells him through gritted teeth. “Why didn’t you come when I needed you?” 

 

“You hadn’t proved yourself worthy before tonight.” He grabs her face like she has seen fathers do to their daughters. The very ones they sell to other men. “And besides, I am here now. In the hour of your greatest need.” 

 

“Proved myself worthy?” She echos backing away from him. 

 

“Only my child would have dared to challenge my brother.” He says like it's supposed to make complete sense. 

 

Emma says nothing, doesn't tell him that all she could think about in that moment was Regina. At the feet of Poseidon not even daring to look away from him. 

 

“If you are to succeed you will need my help. Cisthene is not easily found and a boat will not reach it in time.” 

 

“How can you help?” Emma wants to throw it in his face. Walk away and reject anything he offers but he must be telling the truth. If she tries to do this without him Regina will die. 

 

He lifts his hand and a great wind envelopes her and leaves her with an armour she always imagined soldiers wearing in the cities. It’s made from leather and it’s hard around belly. The skirt lets her move better than her cloak ever did. But before she can ask how is it that it will be in any way useful there is another clap of thunder followed by a horse's neigh. There are no hooves on the ground, just a great swoop of wind coming her way. The horse neighs again and it's when Emma sees its great black wings. It's circling her until Zeus,  _ just _ Zeus, calls for it to land. 

 

“This is Pegasus. He will take where you need to go.” He tells her patting the horse's nose. 

 

“He knows the way to Cisthene?” She asks and hears how ridiculous it sounds. A flying horse knowing anything is probably the least insane thing about this night.

 

“Where you need to go,” He looks at her and Emma knows he must be searching for something in her face that looks like him. He won't find it. “You will be tested along the way.” 

 

“Tested? For what?” She has yet to reach out and touch the horse. 

 

“Tonight was only the first step. Complete the tasks ahead and your reward will be great.”

 

“My reward? My reward?” Emma sounds hysterical and feels her blood lightning up with anger. She sees that same spark in Zeus's eyes. “Is this a game to all of you?” 

 

“The time comes when our children must earn their place among the stars. Yours has come at last.” He brings the horse closer to her and lowers his voice. “Succeed and you will have the life of a god. The one you are destined for.”

 

“What if I don't want it?” She looks into the gray of his eyes and never sees herself reflected in them.

 

“And live your life with these mortals? As one of them?” He laughs thinking her question a joke. 

 

“With a mortal. One.” Her hand finally grasps at the horse's mane, ready to accept it as a gift. 

 

“Your sisters warned me about you. Not that you can help the way your blood runs hot,” Zeus looks up to the night sky. “But should you change your mind, there is a place for you.”

 

Just like Poseidon had become water he becomes lightning that snaps back into the sky. The Pegasus gallops away from her without a warning.

 

“You’re supposed to leave with ME!” Emma shouts after it and uselessly begins chasing it. “Horse, get back here!” 

 

She swears she can hear him snickering as it flaps its wings over her. He flies higher only to come down to try and try swoop at her like a seagull at a fish. Emma falls to the ground heavier in her armor and feeling dumber than she has ever felt. 

 

“Fine!” She yells at him wishing Regina were here. She’d know what to do about a stupid flying horse, she would actually like the damn thing. More importantly, he would like her. Emma pulls at the grass, rips it from its roots. How is she supposed to do any of this? She can’t even get a stupid winged horse to come to her. 

 

“It looks like you might need some help.” Mulan says walking towards her. She has her sword tucked her side and her hair tied on top her head. She looks ready in ways Emma will never be. 

 

“How long have you been standing there?” 

 

“Long enough.” She offers Emma her hand and pulls her up. 

 

Mulan whistles three times and Pegasus gracefully lands before them. He comes closer and pushes Mulan’s hand with his nose. 

 

“How much did you hear?” Emma asks her with eyes fixed on the ground. 

 

“I won’t tell a soul if that is what you’re afraid of.” 

 

“No! I mean...I,” She feels like a fraud under her armor. She can barely wield a wooden sword and suddenly she volunteered to slay a monster. “I don’t know if I can do this and Regina...Gods, Regina...if I fail..this just so unfair...I..” Emma doesn’t want to cry but she can’t help it. 

 

“Emma, Emma.” Mulan says determined enough to stop her rambling. “You don’t have to do this alone.” 

 

“I don’t.” She whispers nodding her head. Zeus, who she refuses to call by another name, had asked she conquer whatever waits for her. She would be worthy of claiming the stars for herself then.  _ Fuck the gods _ , she has all the stars she needs. The loveliest.  “Right, where do we start?” Emma wipes her tears away with the back of her hand. 

 

“First, calm yourself. He’s feeding off your nerves.” She pats Pegasus neck before offering her a leg up. 

 

He stomps his hooves on the ground when Emma manages to sit on him. Mulan has no problem getting onto his back and sitting behind her. 

 

“Are we ready to go?” 

 

“Shh..yeah.” Emma replies.

 

“Is something wrong?” 

 

“I just miss Regina.” Her chest hurts with something she cannot name, has never felt. 

 

“We better go then.” Mulan kicks the Pegasus’s side.”The sooner we leave, the sooner we return.” 

 

His gallop is gentle this time and his wings flap quietly this time. In no time they’re up in the sky, holding to horse hair and each other. It’s up here that Emma realizes how small the island truly is. The white of the houses, the palace’s mighty pillars and even the marble of the temple are not worth one hair from Regina’s head. 

 

They fly towards to the World’s end. 

 

* * *

Emma’s fingers are stiff from holding to Pegasus’s mane, he hates it a lot more than she does. Her thighs are numb and she can barely breathe because of Mulan’s grip around her belly. But they’re out in a world of pure darkness, even if the sky has cleared. The wind is strong with them, the Pegasus doesn’t need to flap its wings to get by. She can’t help the bitterness because she knows how much Regina had asked for a night like this, for a wind that would carry them away from the island and what she got instead was a death sentence. The sky is clouded and dark over the island, Emma hopes, so that Regina doesn’t have to see it. Doesn’t feel this kick in the gut. It’s easy to close her eyes when she’s up here and with the breeze in her hair. Too easy to slip and dream of four days from now. Bright and broken smiles, 

 

“Emma, stay awake!” Mulan says into her ear. 

 

She snaps her eyes open and feels dread pool up at the bottom of her stomach remembering how high up they are. The Pegasus makes a sharp drop as if to prove a point, his hooves graze the water and his wings make for a mist. 

 

“I think he’s beginning to like me!” Emma tells her over her shoulder. She can feel Mulan only shakes her head when Regina would have argued that perhaps the Pegasus was trying to kill her. She takes a deep breath because if she is going to do this then she needs to be stronger than this. Stop getting caught up on what this night would have been, on so many ifs. 

 

Slowly she can see the beginning of Apollo’s trail across the sky, purples and grays replacing the black of the night. For a second Emma forgets why they’re flying over the water, so far everything she’s known. It doesn’t take much to remind her, just wiping water from her forehead to remember the feel of Regina’s skin on hers. That memory almost makes her miss the dark green slowly approaching and she should be breathing easier now. But as the thin of the trees become clearer Emma remembers what lies ahead. The monster whose head she is supposed to take, the one that can turn anyone and anything into stone. Her belt is empty and her footwork isn’t swift nor skillful, but it will have to do. Good enough or not. 

 

Pegasus lands so rough that Emma would have fallen had Mulan not caught her on time. 

 

“He is definitely trying to kill me then.” She says trying to rub the soreness off her thighs.

 

“What?” Mulan asks perplexed and with her hair barely disturbed by the wind. 

 

“It’s...nothing. Ignore me.” She half laughs moving towards what she believes the heart of the island. 

 

Emma doesn’t see how this island is in any way special, it looks no different to the one she’d left behind. If anything the ground seems drier, only good for growing sour grapes. Maybe it’s the creature that is drying out the land, washing it away with only the salt of the ocean. She doesn’t claim to understand anything beyond what she feels run through her blood and this place has no particular feeling to it. But the Pegasus brought here them here, this must be the place. Her hands harden into fists, it’s all she has. 

 

Their steps become a march after some time, giving the illusion that there is more to them than pure nerve. It helps Emma pretend along with the leather of her armor and the Pegasus’s hooves on the ground. She wonders if these same doubts seed into Mulan because her feet are certain and her breathing is never unsteady, maybe there should have been more sparring and less wine. Less talk of home and faraway lands. But never less of Regina’s soft hands running through her knotted and damp hair after been soundly beaten. 

 

“Where do you think this creature is?” Mulan asks with a hand on her sword. 

 

The closer to the heart of the island they get the warmer it becomes, almost as if a fire is feeding this heat. The trees turn to shrubs and the air is heavier. 

 

Emma shrugs looking back at her. “Your guess is as good as mine. Where do you think a monster would be?” 

 

“Where you least expect one.” The words sound serene but Pegasus is flapping its wings and stomps its hooves on the ground. 

 

Emma signals to Mulan to close her eyes before turning to look at the creature. 

 

“I am not whom you seek. Looking upon my face will not turn you to stone.” She sounds amused and maybe even fond of them.

 

“That sounds like a trap to me.” Emma keeps her closed even as she inches closer to her. 

 

“I can assure you it’s not,” Something in the air changes and the ground feels as a great beast is walking on it. “I have been waiting for you for some time now.” 

 

Emma feels her way towards a boulder and hopes it’s between her and the creature. 

 

“Emma, open your eyes,” Mulan shakes her shoulder and sounds like her breath has just been stolen from her. “Trust me.” 

 

She tries to open only one eye just in case she is been tricked. But once she catches sight of the creature Emma cannot keep either one closed. It’s ridiculous to keep questioning every new thing she sees, but there she is. Something she doubted was real, even if it did it was not meant for her fisher eyes to see. Yet, she stands there, the head of a woman on the body of a lion. 

 

“I…I..” Emma begins. 

 

She laughs as she lies down, crossing her paw over the other one. The sphinx is as tall as two trees and her eyes are dark, always following them. “Aren’t you meant to ask me something?” 

 

“If you’re not the one we’re supposed to kill, then who is?” She blurts out earning her a punch in the arm from Mulan. 

 

The Sphinx seems perplexed and hurt by the question. “She goes by Medusa now.”  

 

“Oh.” Mulan whispers quietly and Emma understands what it is she just realized. “Where can she be found?”

 

“Solve my riddle first and I will tell you where to go.” 

 

Emma suppresses a groan and cannot bear to look the Sphinx in the eye, not without feeling the urge to explain what’s at stake. A life for many, but that would feel dishonest. It’s really a life for a life. 

 

“Alright,” She focuses on her tail that curls and uncurls. “What is it?” 

 

She closes her eyes, mulling it over. “What barks like a dog, hits like a hammer, snores like a bear and eats like a pig?” 

 

They stand there in stunned silence as smugness creeps into her smile. It’s wishful thinking, Emma realizes, her eyes just want to see something familiar in her face. 

 

“Is it an animal?” Mulan asks rubbing the Pegasus’s back. 

 

“Of sorts.” She replies. 

 

“Is it like…?”  Emma gestures to Sphinx’s still averting her eyes. 

 

“Like me? No, goddesses forbid.” 

 

“Well, that narrows it down.” She mutters suddenly missing her cloak and the places where she could stuff her hands. 

 

Mulan sits with her back resting on the horse and once in awhile will offer up an answer the Sphinx rejects with a simply “Try again.” It irks Emma, so she spends what feels like hours pacing and having all three sets of eyes following her. 

 

“Barks like a dog?” 

 

“Yes.” The Sphinx answers. 

 

“Hits like a hammer, snores like a bear…

 

“And eats like a pig.” Mulan completes beginning to sound exasperated. 

 

“I don’t know,”Emma rubs at her face frantically. “Anything that sounds remotely like that is a man!” 

 

The Sphinx smiles and stands up, towering over them again. “Go West, until you reach the place where the Sea meets rock and the water turns red.” 

 

“That was the answer?!” Emma can’t help but laugh.

 

“No man would have been able to think of it.” Mulan chimes in as she dusts herself off.

 

That earns them an understanding nod from her. “Go now! There is still more ahead of you.” 

 

For a moment thinks she seems to be speaking to Pegasus as opposed to them.  She cannot let herself wonder how much of this has been lined up, of how little choice she has in anything. They have in anything. She shakes her head and mounts the horse, choice or no choice, it doesn’t matter. They are doing this. 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight change in format for this because this is how I thought it would make the most sense.

Regina cannot comprehend what it is that drew to her sister’s bedroom. To lie on her bed, like she had never done, to watch the Sun rise. She’d felt strong wind come and go into the room, making a mockery of her prayers. Even then, Regina had heard herself whispering the Mother’s name. Wondering just what had gone wrong, had her sacrifices not been enough? Would have three more drops of oil hidden her from Poseidon? Would fresher milk have stopped mother’s words to the King? Her arms had gone to hug her waist, to mimic the way Emma always held her. Emma,  Emma who doesn’t know when to quit, who could die trying to save her. Perhaps they should’ve rowed out to Sea and begged for a large wave to push them away. Anything but the angry resignation that had from here watching the fire grow and grow. It’s too late now.

 

In the soft blue of the morning Regina hides her face in the pillow that still smells like her sister. Mint, grass and everything green. What would she say if she were here, if she had seen it all happen? 

 

“Regina!” For a moment, just one, she is deceived into thinking it’s Emma. “Regina, come down from there!” Marian fails to whisper. 

 

Her knees and feet are stiff as she approaches the window. She feels the emptiness in her stomach. Regina blinks at the light before looking down on Marian. There is an odd desperation in her face and her hair is covered by a hood, as if that gives her an air of secrecy. 

 

“Quickly, before they come!” 

 

“Before? What are you talking about?” Regina whispers back.

 

“I’ll explain later, just hurry!” 

 

She nods and moves to loosely tie her sandals and makes the same leap she has made for years. She feels disappointment pooling in her stomach knowing that there will be no racing down to the shore and it’s dawn not nearing dusk that has the air cool like this. There will be no Emma today, and that faithless voice tells her that this is the way it was always meant to be. How it will be for however long she lives now. The silk of her cloak tears as she lands next to Marian and Regina does not care. Let it tear, let it drag mud. She doubts it will matter.  Marian grabs her arm and takes her across paths even she had not discovered. 

 

“Marian, stop. You said you’d explain, so explain.” Regina leans against a trunk of a tree. 

 

“There’s been talk among the people and the King.” 

 

“And when has ever he listened to them?” Regina scoffs and Marian cocks her head in disapproval. 

 

“They’re talking about what do you with you, Regina.” 

 

“I thought that was decided last night.” She answers not even trying to keep the harshness away from her voice.

 

“Not quite.” She bobs her head to get her to move. 

 

The dirt of the road turns to stone and the old scent of fish and wine reaches them. The must be close to the market, before anyone is even there.

 

“What else could they possibly do?” Regina laughs because there comes a point when there is nothing else to do. 

 

“Shhh.” Marian’s eyes go wider than she has ever seen them. 

 

“There she is!” A man shouts in the distance. 

 

“Trying to get away is she?!” Says another 

 

“Leave us to die!” A woman says behind them. 

 

“Run, run!” Marian urges her. She runs even if it’s futile, even if the end of the road is water that keeps her prisoner. 

 

They reach the shore and Regina sees a miserable fishing boat waiting, half the size of the one she and Emma had built. She stops and her feet sink into the sand. 

 

“What is this, Marian?” 

 

“We could catch up with Emma before they get to you!” Marian struggles to push the boat into the water. Never with Emma’s ease, and Regina feels a stab in her chest seeing shadows where she had not expected them. 

 

“We don’t even know the way!” 

 

“Don’t you trust the gods?!” 

 

“They have spoken, Marian!” Anger boils red hot inside her, the kind Emma must have felt not even a day ago. “If I leave everyone on this island will die!” 

  
  


“The people behind us are not planning on extending you the same kindness.” Water hits Marian’s knees and still Regina has not moved an inch.

 

“I know.” Regina hears the crowd approaching them, and closes her eyes. Even if she hates them for their determination, even when presses her nails harder into her palms with their shouts, even if she doesn’t believe they deserve to be saved from the monster that’s coming, she stays. Her body grows hot with rage. 

 

It seems as if the whole island has come to take her. All faces she has grown up with, all fathers and mothers of children that had asked once or twice if she was allowed to play. Women had curled their fingers around her hair, told her she was beautiful and called her daughter-in-law. Men who had looked at papa and called her a blessing to his house. They’re all here, with heaving chests and red faces. 

 

“Selfish girl!” Comes a man that grabs her wrist to drag her along. 

 

“You’re not pulling me like a beast!” Regina snatches her hand away and glares at the man, at his bearded face and blue eyes. 

 

“Lock her up so that she doesn’t get ideas!” Someone shouts from the back. 

 

“Have her ready to feed to him!” 

 

“Yeah, yeah!” The crowd echoes. 

 

Regina’s eyes are hard looking at them all, she is ready to talk back to them but then she finds Papa’s face. Grief stricken and shameful, mother holds him by the wrist. She knows that if he thought himself capable he could break free from her grasp, push people aside and get to her. But he will not, he will only apologize and pray for forgiveness. Always for forgiveness, and never for strength. She unclenches her hands, feeling the sting of fresh cuts on her palms. 

 

The man reaches for her again and Regina dodges his hand.

 

“There is no need for that. I’m going willingly.”

 

“Regina…” Marian whispers behind her. 

 

She walks past the man and discovers her words had meant nothing to her. A rope binds her wrists together and hands push her along. Regina can feel papa’s gaze just as she can hear Marian trying to make her way through them. Hands push and pull her along until they have reached the top of the island again back to the King’s palace. The King himself is not there to receive them, but the palace doors are open to them, every single one leading down to dungeons Regina never knew existed. 

 

“Now we’re saved. All of us are saved!” The man announces to the rest of them as he locks her in. 

 

They cheer and stretch their hands to heavens in thanks. Standing in the dark of it Regina sees clearly for the first time, this is their altar, that is their prayer and she is the oil that will be spilled. 

  
  


* * *

 

The Sphinx hadn’t lied, the Sea turns red as blood the moment they find the island. It makes Emma’s stomach feel uneasy, she can almost smell slaughtered goats and rotten fish. It’s an ugly thing the island, the stone is black and nothing like the cliffs she’d jump from. It looks like everything that washes up on its shores is meant to die. Nothing but a great wasteland, too big to be real. 

 

“Think this must be the place?” Ëmma asks Mulan over the wind.

 

“What answer are you hoping for?” She replies shifting behind her, the hilt of her sword pressing against her thigh. 

 

Emma only knows to laugh, even if it doesn’t last long. How could it? Looking at the barren land that waits for them. Yellow and brown, nothing like any land she and Regina had talked about. Not even the dead could walk here, what kind of thing could? Pegasus is even quiet in his landing, maybe he knows there is something in the island worth hiding from. Her knees almost cave and her feet feel like they’re pricked with needles as she kicks up yellow dust in the island. It’s the only way Emma can tell many hours have gone by, not even the Sun is good for that. Apollo won’t touch this cursed place. They don’t have to squint to look at the great nothing that is this place, nothing that stretches as far as the eye can see. Except for red a spot followed by a thin veil of grey. Fire, she feels sick at the realization. 

 

“Do you think anyone lives here?” Mulan ask retying her hair. 

 

“We’re about to find out.” She sighs because she’s tired already.

 

Emma thinks that a true child of a god would be thirsty for this, wouldn’t feel worn down to her very bones without haven’t even begun. She wants it to be a lie even if she can feel thunder beating in her chest and lightning in her blood. For all the good that it has ever done her. It’s all too quiet, they haven’t even breathed another word. Sooner than she would have believed she can hear the familiar crackling of fire and smell the burning of wood and meat. Some indistinct type of meat that doesn’t smell like anything she knows. 

 

“Who would come to such a place?” Mulan mumbles more to Pegasus than to her. 

 

Three figures appear to be huddled together around the fire, like some sort of a chill passed them. Three, not one. Medusa would be alone, she guesses. It sounds like she would be even if Emma can’t grasp how she knows it. 

 

“Sisters, we have visitors!” One of them says.

 

“Who is it? Let me see!” Cries the other one while reaching out her sister. 

 

“Selfish the both of you. We’re supposed to take turns!” 

 

Mulan grabs her elbow trying to pull her but it isn’t enough to keep her away. She sees the sisters clearly now, they are without eyes. Not even empty sockets, there is only wrinkled skin where their eyes should be. There is one between them, the smallest one is struggling it to keep it to herself. One of her sisters slaps her hand, she shrieks and the tallest one finally claims the eye for herself.  She turns it towards Emma, all grey and white.  The sister gasps and almost drops her eye. Then there is hiss as she tosses the eye to her sister, like she had been burned by hot coals. Groans and muttering come from them, their own secret language. The eye is set on her once again and its gaze will not drop. 

 

“What is a daughter of thunder doing here?” The sister spits out like venom. 

 

“I, ah. Well, you see,” Emma clears her throat needing to feel bigger than she is. “We are here for Medusa.” 

 

“Ah, ah! Away with you, daughter of Zeus!” 

 

“We do not allow tainted bloodlines near us!” 

 

“Not to slay our sister. Our almost child!” Cries one sister shaking her fist at her. 

 

“You don’t understand!” Emma yells suddenly enraged, she hadn’t come all this way to have the way shut to her. Because of Zeus who calls himself something he does not deserve. “I didn’t even know he was...this isn’t about him! It’s about a girl and..”

 

“The way will not be shown to you, girl!” The sister crosses her arms over her chest

 

“Lightning clouds our eye!”

 

“Thunder makes us deaf!” She covers her ears 

 

“You reek of god!” Her fingers pinch her nose. 

 

“Then how are we supposed to…?” She begins angrily. Ready to do whatever it takes to get them to talk. 

 

“Emma,” Mulan places her hand on her shoulder. “Why don’t you let me?” 

 

She knows to nod and grab at the leather of her skirt. Glaring at the sisters even if only one can see it. 

 

“Ladies, would you show  _ me  _ the way?” Mulan asks with that change of voice that she keeps so well hidden. 

 

“Not while thunder child stands next you,” The sister says with more civility than she had treated Emma. 

 

Mulan squeezes her shoulder sensing what she will do next. 

 

“Ugh, have it your way then!” Emma throws her hands in the air.

 

Pegasus neighs as she stalks past him. Walks until the sisters can’t complain a daughter of Zeus stunts their vision.  She kicks peebles around, desperately wishes for a tree or bush, something she could tear apart. It would give her something to do other than wait in this place. Then it is not something she wants to cut open or bruise she wants. Emma wants hyacinth, smooths skin and dark curls that have just been unmade. Regina, she wants Regina to sink into. To hold, wants to cry on her shoulder. Without anything left to do she sits on the ground tucking her knees under her chin. Emma closes her eyes and tries to forget where she is for as long as it takes for Mulan to find her. 

 

“Truly you could not have been born from our father’s head.” The voice is measured and distant, like no one’s she knows. 

 

Emma snaps her eyes open and finds her standing above her. Dark hair and sharp eyes that see through her. She is wearing an armor, the leather discolored enough to tell her it’s been worn for centuries. There is a silver owl at her waist. At this Emma shakes her head because she has seen enough gods to last her a life time, but here she is. Her sister, Athena. 

 

“What is with you gods and sudden appearances?” Emma doesn’t bother getting up until she extends her hand. 

 

“Aphrodite heard your supplication just now.” She answers if it’s supposed to make any kind of sense to her. 

 

“But I didn’t say anything.” 

 

“Our sister has a habit of prying into her favorites’ thoughts. A habit we have all discouraged from time to time.” Athena looks nothing like Emma. Hair that would fall into waves were it not pinned to her scalp, her nose gives her distinct profile. Maybe it had been broken in battle. 

 

“And why isn’t she here?” Her eyes search for Aphordite's dove before she settles her hands on her waist, struggling to stand in her sister’s shadow.

 

“She is ill suited for this task, I’m afraid.” Athena smiles fondly at her. “Have you any idea what lies ahead of you?”

 

“Medusa, I’m supposed to take her head.” She answers realizing how naive it must sound to her ears. 

 

“You are not wrong.” 

 

“But I’m not right either, is that what you’re saying?” 

 

“Not for me to determine.” Athena stand straight as an arrow with her hands behind her back. 

 

“ Everything else but not this, is that it?” She bites at her lip, it does nothing to stop her words. “Why are you really here?” 

 

“Zeus did not provide you with all you needed,”  She curls her fingers and a sword comes to be in her hand.  A sturdy looking shield on her forearm. “He believes you have to earn it.” 

 

“And what do you believe?” Emma asks feeling the sting of unworthiness when she had not expected it. 

 

“That he is short-sighted.” There is a dangerous and cunning smile to her. She hands her the sword and shield, lighter than they look. “Perhaps it is time for a change.” 

 

Emma cocks her head to the side, not grasping her meaning. No doubt Athena catches it the moment it happens, with those yellow eyes of hers. 

 

“All in due time, Emma.” Her fingers runs on the blade like if it were a feather. “For now, focus on the task at hand. “ 

 

“Um, I will. I will.”  Finding her determination, something beyond the anger she’d felt with Zeus. 

 

“Use these wisely, sister.” Athena nods and quickly turns into a great and brown owl. She flies away and Emma is at least grateful to be able to see her go. 

 

Emma touches the tip of the blade and pricks her finger bloody before she can run her finger down it.  The sword goes into the sheath that now hangs around her waist and she straps her shield to her back. If she is lucky the sisters would have spoken to Mulan by now. They meet halfway, Mulan looking pale and the Pegasus walking steadily next to her. 

 

“I’ve seen her. The sisters, they showed me the way.” She says without blinking. “This island is her home, a cave beneath the earth.” 

 

“How long until we find her?” 

 

“A day’s walk.” Mulan says patting the horse’s nose. “He cannot come.” 

 

“That’d make it too easy.” 

 

“Your gods are cruel.” She eyes her sword and shield without asking a single question. Mulan begins walking to the East of the island, from where the Sun should have risen. “I cannot live with them.” 

 

“I don’t think anyone can.” 

 


	5. Chapter 5

The darkness Regina had expected, the cold and rock bruising her skin. It’s the silence that comes as surprise,so far bellow and away from the water. Not even the change in tide to help her tell time. She is alone and after a while Regina does not know if her eyes are even open anymore. She tries to remember the color of dusk, the very same that gets caught in Emma’s hair. They one she had weaved to into a blanket as a promise. The very same that had gone up in flames and had turned into colorless ashes. Without willing it she forms a fist and hits it against the floor, she cannot see the red but she can feel it. Wet on her knuckles. She shouldn’t, Regina thinks, but she is allowed to be angry. It could be what the gods want, her blood spilt, but it’s just occurring to her that she is not obligated to be happy about it. Emma is out there somewhere trying to get back to her and hope wants to fights its way through all the anger and bitterness. She wants it to, desperately. All that is left is to do is wrap her arms around herself and pray to whoever listens that stronger arms will replace hers. Ones that smell of salt and whose skin has hardened with hard work and the Sun.

 

A speck of orange appears in the corner of the room, bright enough to hurt her eyes. Their steps are quiet approaching, so quiet that Regina would know them anywhere. She has listened for them her whole life.

 

“Mother.” She says with a strangled cry.

 

“My Regina.” Mother beckons her to come closer to the bars.

 

For a moment Regina does not move, hating that she wants to do as she asks. Feeling a burn inside her as she remembers the King’s feast, being offered to him like the finest lamb for the guest of honor. But mother’s eyes soften like they hardly ever do and they push back everything all Regina feels.

 

“I brought your favorite.” Mother hands her a cloth that smells of hot goat and mint.

 

She takes it without hesitation as her body is already anticipating the first bite. Regina tears the bread apart and wrap it around morsels of meat. Mother is quick to hand her a pouch with wine and smile. It feels perverse to see her teeth bared as she eats under the light of her fire. Her expression has turned into something else, like Hera’s does under the Sun.

 

“I did not mean for this to happen, Regina.” She reaches to tuck a loose curl behind her ear but Regina dodges her hand. “If I had only known how this would end, I would not have...”

 

“Angered the gods?” She is unable to bite her tongue. “I don’t see how this is any different than making me the King’s bride.”

 

“How dare you say that?!” Mother presses her face to the bars, unable to grab her chin as she usually does. “You would’ve been Queen! It’s what you were born to do!”

 

“How...how can you know that?” Regina chokes on her words. “Mother, how could you know what the gods…”

 

“For all your oil and milk, for every leaf you burned you never understood the gods.” Mother’s laugh is low as it is mocking, her forehead pressed against the metal. “Silly girl. Prayers are never answered. Things happen by our own hand.”

 

“Mother…”Regina begins dreading what she will say next.

 

“Who do you think set your precious boat on fire? Not the gods.” The curve of her smile tells her this is the true reason mother had come down here.

 

She doesn’t reply feeling bile in the throat, tasting the bread she had just eaten. Her knees hit the rough stone and Regina cannot stop herself from crying. Mother, mother who knew the boat with crooked pieces of wood and blankets, mother who had burned them down. Regina turns to look at her, a blur under her wet eyes.

 

“Tell me you didn’t truly believe I didn’t know about your fisher girl.” Her fingers tighten around metal and her eyes grow hard. They way they always are.

 

“Did...Zelena..?” Regina can barely get the words out.

 

“Oh, don’t blame your sister, dear!” Mother exclaims and Regina discovers just how far her the limits of her cruelty extend. “She never breathed a word to me, she didn’t have to. You were careless, have been for years.”

 

She tears her eyes away from mother, choosing to look at the stone that holds her here. Wishes for darkness and silence to return.

 

“Climbing out windows. Dragging sand covered cloaks into the house, with every single one of your hairs out of place. Red faced and smiling,” Every word feels like a dagger, they are meant to. “You were too blind to see what you were doing.  Too blind and weakened by for your love for that... _nothing._ ”

 

At that her eyes fix into a glare as turns to look at her. “Don’t call her that.”  

 

“See? Weak.”

 

“ _Get out._ ” Regina barks at her, manners and fear do not matter in this place anymore.

 

“And leave you in this darkness?” Mother says retrieving the torch from the wall, her last attempt at a bargain. “The Sun has set, dear. You have only two days left. I would’ve thought you would’ve liked…”

 

“Goodbye, mother.” Regina raises her chin and dares to keep her eyes in hers.

 

If mother had ever been slapped Regina supposed it would have looked a lot like that. Jaw locked and eyes wild, eyes that would have terrified her a day ago. There is nothing else she can do now.

 

Regina listens for the last of her steps until she knows mother has gone. She bangs on the ground with her fists. Prayers are never answered, mother may be right about that. But they are heard, she will make herself be heard. Regina wants them to know every about every thread of despair and anger she feels. Every drop of helplessness, all of them threatening to wash away dusk-colored hope. They should hear mother’s laugh, see just how her teeth shine next to a fire. Calls to the King and Queen of the underworld are whispered, let Emma not die. Let her own death be quick if it comes to that, let her die with whatever dignity she has left. Not as a prize, not as a sacrifice.  She begs that she should feel hopeful at the moment when it all ends.

 

“Regina, Regina,” It’s gentle, like Spring breeze. “Enough of that.”

 

It’s impossible to see here in this dark but Regina can feeling her sitting down next to her. Her hand cups Regina’s cheek, perfumed with narcissus. She does not need to ask her name, only Persephone could make this dungeon feel like a warm field.

 

“You heard me.” Regina tells her trying to hide her surprise.

 

“How could I not?” Persephone could lull her to sleep if she wanted. “The whole of Hades rang with your voice. We don’t often get prayers, you see.”

 

“Oh,” She takes a deep breath, unprepared to ask her question. “Are you here for me?”

 

“Do you want me to be?” Her hand smooths over her bleeding knuckles.

 

She considers her question, her life’s thread hangs from Emma’s hands. Wrapped around her fingers to keep it safe, it will not be cut.  Unless it is snatched from her, split down the middle.

 

“No, I don’t.” The confession just makes her hurt more.

 

“Then why ask for such things?” It would have sounded harsh coming from another mouth. “I understand…”

 

“Do you really?” Regina turns to try and face her in this darkness. “You were taken from your mother. She didn’t give you away to be consumed for a crown.”  

 

“True. My mother still mourns for me, immortal as I am. And you, you have but one life to live.” Persephone squeezes her hand and sighs as if she had just woken up from a dream. “Mortals, you don’t know how precious you are.”

 

Her meaning sinks in and Regina drops her chin to her chest. “Then you’re not taking me to Hades?”

 

“That is not my in my power. Never has been.” Persephone’s hand leaves hers and she gets to her feet almost imperceptibly. “And Regina?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Let that be your last prayer to me.”

 

The breeze and perfume are gone but warmth stays lodged in her chest.

 

Mother was wrong.

 

* * *

 

Emma rests her back on the hard black stone, her eyes looking down at her feet. They’re colored red like the dirt of this island and wonders if it’s supposed to mean something. An owl hoots close by and she could ask it if her hands will turn red next. Except she already knows Athena won’t answer. She’ll say it’s up to Emma to decide. Maybe it’s a god thing. Maybe it’s a sister thing, she will never know.

 

“Do you still have some water left?” Mulan asks her with her hand on her knees.

 

She tosses her the leather pouch filled from the one stream they could drink from. Mulan is careful with her sips, probably counting each drop. Emma knows she has done this before, marching with a sword to her hip and stopping for no more than a few seconds. The day has been long, walking through an emptiness of red. Climbing stone cliffs that appeared out thin air, a river that runs strong and upwards. All meant to have worn them to the bone. Mulan looks thinner already, the skin under her eyes dark with exhaustion. There is much she doesn’t say and Emma knows she will never be able to thank her enough.

 

“You alright?” Emma asks her looking noticing the slight shake to her hands.

 

“I…”Mulan begins. “Forgive me.”

 

“For what?”

 

“This is as far as I go,” She presses her lips together. “I’ve seen her with the sisters’ eye, Medusa, what they did to her.I cannot help you kill her. I know I said you wouldn’t have to do it alone but…”

 

The owl hoots again in in approval of her words and Emma rests her hand on the hilt of her sword. It stings that this could be her test, maybe Zeus had deemed her unworthy but she didn’t know it would hurt coming from a sister.

 

“It’s fine. Really.” Emma puts her hand on her shoulder and tries to give her a smile. She must have failed judging by the look on Mulan’s face. “You’ve done enough already. Too much.”

 

“You’re my friend.” She replies in way of explanation.

 

“Remember that, won't you?” Emma rubs the back of her head trying to ignore she already feels. “For when I come back.”

 

Mulan nods and barely moves her lips to a shadow of a smile. It’s her last gesture of comfort.

 

Emma steels herself as she unsheathes her sword and holds her shield with the arm she’d always use to parry off Mulan’s hits. She can’t do this, but she has to. Her feet have taken it upon themselves to walk into the darkness of the cave. The ground beneath her feet is littered rocks and each step her feet take tell her they are doing all the work. Her heart is pounding in her ears and she knows that her sword is shaking right along with the hand that holds it. It seems to be impossible but it gets darker inside this place and Emma wonders if she were more like Zeus, had his grey eyes, would she be able to see her path? More like her sister and she would know where to walk, her hand would be steady. There would be no doubt seeded in her chest, between her bones. Suddenly her eyes are throbbing from the fire of countless torches, whoever makes it this far has to be able to see Medusa she thinks grimly.

 

There is a cackle inside the cave and a wind that just barely threatens to extinguish the fire. Like it had been thought out and executed for this purpose.

 

“And who has Olympus sent now?” Medusa’s voices echoes throughout the cave. “A manboy who promised my head to a King?” She mocks her enough that Emma is sure she has already seen her.

 

“Uh..no.” Emma answers awkwardly. “It’s not really like that”

 

“Then what is it like, fisher girl?” There is something in her voice that she knows but cannot pin down.

 

“Do you know me?”

 

Medusa laughs again it bounces from each end of the cave. Emma feels her breath close to her and before she can stop herself she looks. Nothing, nothing but the red glow of the fire.

 

“You stink of fish and god is all, darling.” There is another gust of wind and she catches a glimpse of a feather. Wings, Medusa has wings.

 

“I’ve been told.” Emma’s lips are tight and she decides to closer her eyes.  “Look, I’m here because…”

 

“Spare me your explanations!” Her voice turns violent and there is a chorus of hisses coming her way. “Anyone is only ever here to try and kill me, you are no different!”

 

Feeling a change in the air Emma raises her shield just to take a hit against it. Hard enough that Emma stumbles back. The hissing returns, Medusa isn’t alone after all. Against any sound judgement she opens her eyes and lifts her sword above her face. A sword so clean that it will act as a mirror.  She bites at her lip as she tries to find Medusa, Emma almost drops her sword catching a glimpse of her in the light. White wings folded on her back, skin as green as the grass in the abandoned garden and snakes, hundreds of them, in the place of hair.

 

“You think you are the first one to try that trick?” Medusa turns to look at her and Emma shuts her eyes. Emma blocks another attack from her, this time a snake head bites at her fingers. The sword almost slips from her grasp, almost. “You aren’t even  the second! I turned their statues to dust. Do the gods really think they can send their champion to march in here after what they did to me?!”

 

Medusa is playing with her, that much is clear. If she had wanted her dead she could have killed her the moment she stepped into the cave. Whatever her reasons, they are buying her time and Emma just needs a little more to wrap her head around this.

 

“What did the gods do to you?” Emma asks pressing her shield against her chest.

 

“First? They decided I should be mother’s older child. The child she didn’t want.” _Mother_ , Regina says it like that. Like poison that is begging to turn into honey. “Even then, I tried to be her. I prayed every day, not always meaning the words.I spread out my arms to the heavens in supplication. Until mother decided I was good enough to be sent to serve the great goddess, Athena.”

 

Emma feels her blood turn cold at the mention of her sister and moves to the stone wall, where Medusa can’t surprise her.

 

“I was great. The likes no one had seen in that damn temple.” She sounds amused by the memories. “The elders said that Athena would no doubt take notice of me. It wasn’t true, of course. It was Poseidon who first saw me. Took me as his and then left me on the shore to die when he was done. It was only then when Athena appeared before me. Made me so that no one could even look at me again.”

 

“I...I..” Emma begins feeling a heaviness settle on her shoulders.

 

“You what? You’re sorry?” Medusa laughs again. “It is nothing but the will of the gods. I sit here waiting for whatever executioner they send for me and my sister sits at home weaving. Not even knowing every night mother works to make her Queen.”

 

Mother, sister. The mother who hadn’t wanted her but kept her anyway, the sister she would see become Queen. Emma remembers Regina’s voice, like she always does, working at hard at keeping itself together. Angry so it couldn’t be called anything else. “She’s ridiculous if she thinks mother...she _hates_ me.”  

 

“Zelena?” Emma tries her luck.

 

“What did you call me?” She flaps her wings and doesn’t much care that they hit Emma as she lands in front of her.

 

“Zelena.” Emma tries to sound unafraid knowing how close they are. “You’re Regina’s sister.”

 

“And you’re that starved little fisher girl she runs around with, isn’t that right? I thought a smelled something familiar on you.” If Zelena is still anything like Regina she may be rolling her eyes in disbelief. “Let me guess, you’re here because of her.”

 

“Yeah,” Emma admits in a breath. “Poseidon…”

 

“Poseidon!” Zelena exclaims.

 

“Please, just…” Her sword is in still in her hand, trembling with fear and uncertainty. “They’re going to kill her...he...Poseidon promised that his monster would destroy the island unless they sacrifice her.”

 

“Pity.”

 

“Pity?!” She charges forward and swings her sword at her before she can help herself. She’s cut her but not too badly judging by her snakes still being so loud. “Do you know that’s what he said about her? When he saw her terrified at his feet?! Pity that it would be his monster that would have her!”

 

Zelena moves away from her with a move from her feathers, suddenly acting like a scared dove.

 

“You hate the gods for doing this to you? Regina is going to die because they had a whim!”

 

“And what do you want me to do?! Lose my life so that she gets to keep hers?!” It comes in a shriek and maybe this is the way Zelena had always wanted to speak to woman she called mother. “Fuck your gods, fisher girl.” She says through a strangled sob.

 

Emma begins to cry because they shouldn’t be here at all. She should be in the middle of the Sea, resting her head on Regina’s legs. Regina should be reminding her it’s her job to catch the fish, and they’d be smiling. Zelena should still be in a temple, having her sister come to her every day. Have everyone look upon her. Instead they’re here, with their knees on the ground. She sheathes her sword, thinking that perhaps she has failed Athena’s test.

 

“Help her, please.” She begs eyes cast down to the ground.

 

“How?” Zelena asks quietly. “It’s my curse you need, not me.”

 

Emma considers this, thinks of Poseidon demanding her head. Of Athena and her sword and shield. The place among the stars that was offered. Let it all rot. There is a way, the one they will make.

 

“Come with me then.” Emma gets to her feet, feeling the string of scrapes on her knees. “Spit in his face.”  Her eyes are still closed but she extends her hand to Zelena all the same.

 

“I can’t understand what my sister saw in you,” Zelena says with her voice lighter than she’s heard it so far. “You’re an idiot.”

 

Emma can’t help but smile when she feels Zelena’s hand take hers.

 


	6. Chapter 6

Her body feels stiff in this darkness, a drumming beats away at her head. Regina tries to shake it off but it persists. It’s only when her hands feel the dungeon’s wall that she discovers that drumming is not her own. It’s coming from above her, she imagines they must be great drums. The whole island must be playing them if she can hear them down in this hole. Regina stands up because they are to come for her, they should find her on her feet. Not on her knees, never on her knees. Not for men, not for anyone. Her legs are heavy and her head is light on her shoulders, but she raises her chin.  She expects an angry mob of men, the same one that had brought here to come for her. Instead she finds the temple’s priestess, Zafeiri, holding a torch. Her smile is wide and her eyes are bright. Zafeiri looks at her curiously as if she cannot decipher the look on her face.

 

“What is the matter, girl?” Her voice is sweet enough to sicken her.

 

“You cannot be serious.” Regina replies with no patience left.

 

“So few of us ever get chosen by the gods, you should be rejoicing!” Her voice chirps like a bird’s.

 

Regina laughs in her face because she cannot help the emptiness at the bottom of her stomach. “You don’t know anything, do you?”

 

“Hush! Lest you anger…”

 

“The gods?” Regina comes lean against the bars. “Open the door and get this over with, priestess.”

 

“You should be humble before being offered. Think of the people on this island, girl.”  Zafeiri opens the door and her eyes are no less bright.  

 

“I am.” Regina says holding her gaze in hers as she binds her wrists with the same rope that had brought her down her.

 

“Follow me.” She says as if Regina has a  choice.

 

And she does, feeling her cloak drag behind her. The dirt and sweat in her undergarments, the weakness of her knees. It’s meant to be shameful. This walk up the stairs and out to the drums is meant to humiliate her. The monster needs her broken and willing, all monsters do. Had Persephone known about this? Had she heard the people’s dancing on the roof of Hades? No more prayers to her, no supplications. This she has to face alone it would seem.  There isn’t a friendly face to receive her in the halls of the King’s palace, some of their eyes are closed. Their arms are outstretched and she can hear them. Their mutterings, the lists of their good deeds how all them make them worthy of being spared.

 

“Please accept this offering as a sign of our devotion.” One whispers as she walks past him, words she had said many times.

 

“Let her be cleansed before you, Lord Poseidon.” Says another voice as she walks the halls.

 

“All evil be cast out from her and this island.”

 

New words, prayers she had never heard uttered before. Unthinkable ones, asking the gods to make her worthy of sacrifice. As if they had been absent from the King’s feast that night.  Regina doesn't want to what has transpired since they locked her up in the dungeons. It's a long line of people all the way to a cliff she recognizes all too well.

 

“Regina, Regina!” Marian says running through the crowd. Her eyes follow her wrestling away from many hands. “Let me through you lunatics! Regina!”

 

She keeps walking down the path, mouthing a thank you to her friend. Resignation seems to settle in Marian's face even as she keeps her pace steady with hers. Perhaps she won't be completely alone, the smallest of mercies.The drumming picks up again, just at the moment when the sky has turned the colour of the promise Hera had ignored. It’s dusk and her heart sinks. Fire has been lit to welcome Poseidon's monster to take her. Zafeiri leads her to the very edge of the precipice and ties each wrist to rings that seem to have made for this purpose alone. The people begin chanting as the priestess tests the tightness of the rope and lifts her arms up in celebration.

 

“Come now, come now, son of Poseidon. Come now to wipe us clean, take what we offer.”Is what Regina is able to discern, it sounds like a beehive that has been poked one too many times.  She wonders if papa is among the people, if he stands silent or if he has joined the chanting. Regina hopes he is at the house at the top of mountain averting his eyes from the setting Sun.  She can’t, her eyes never stop watching the edge of the World.

 

It starts as a disturbance in the water, like a fish bank that got too large. A dark spot that should never be under this light. Waves get stronger just as the people’s chanting gets louder and Regina can only imagine Poseidon. Sitting on coral throne watching this unfold, the Nereids to whom she had begged to be taken away laughing at her fate. A grey tentacle is the first to break the surface, like the ones yiayia Lucas sells at the market. Three more follow it until the full monstrosity of the thing is revealed. A blue shell cover its body and it has countless rows of teeth. It quickens its pace, water hitting the cliffside stronger than any storm could. Yet the people do not move, they seem to welcome the water. Regina’s heart beats so strongly that she fears it might break through the bone, it’s a wonder she has managed to keep standing.

 

“It’s time!”

 

“Mighty and fearsome he is!”

 

“Come and take her, son of Poseidon!” Zafeiri yells above all other voices. “Take her as tribute to erase all offenses!”

 

Regina thinks of Emma when the waves keep raising, thinks of the ones that brought her here. Hopes that she is safe, that her hair is still the color of hope and promise, that her hands are still rough and that her smile never dims. The monster keeps coming and releases a sound that quiets the whole of the island, it rips through the air. It sounds like the water during a storm, like when lighting strikes surface. His eyes are black and lifeless and while looking at them she cannot remember her prayers of old. Not for mercy, not her strength, not for love or a strong wind. Feeling the rope burning her wrists Regina feels urgency building up in her, like when she had discovered her mother’s fire and called it the will of the gods.

 

“Fuck _this_.” She says pulling at the ropes harder and harder. Her skin is cuts and she might get to bone before she manages to get free but she has to try.

 

The monster roars and his breath is wind of rot. A voice, that sounds nothing mother’s whispers of doubt, tells her to run. Regina sprints towards the very edge of the cliff and feels the ropes slide off her wrists. She looks down and recognizes the place where she had first kissed Emma. Her fisher girl had jumped and survived, perhaps she will too. Regina takes one last look at the monster’s black lifeless eyes and jumps.

 

The wind is harsh against her skin, nothing like swimming to depths of the Sea. But it’s the orange and red of the water all she sees forgetting how to breathe. Is this what Emma had felt, this rush of cold through her veins as her eyes became wet? Regina cannot bear to close them Out of nowhere a horse neighs and a gust of wind envelopes her.

 

“Hey, easy. I’ve got you.” Emma says gently against her hair.

 

“You’ve got me? Who’s got you?!”

 

The horse neighs again to answer her question. It has wings, beautiful black ones. A gift from the gods, it cannot be called anything less.

 

“He’s not too happy about it, if you ask me.” Emma says through a laugh. She wraps one arm around her waist. She isn’t wearing her usual linen, it’s leather that is pressing against her back. Three days, it seems, make a world of difference.

 

“How...Emma, careful!” Regina hands grab the horse’s mane as they dive to avoid a tentacle. A trap, as another one ensnares them from behind.

 

The horse tries to fly away with all its strength but it’s useless. The monster is carrying them to his mouth.

 

“Here,” Emma hands her a fine wooden shield. “No matter what, don’t let go.”

 

“No, no! Don’t you dare!” Regina calls after her but it’s already too late.

 

Emma looks too small with a sword in her hand, aiming to cut at the thing that is holding them back. It’s gone in one swift move and the monster shrieks in pain. With a pull to the left the horse obeys her direction to dive after Emma but before she can reach her another winged creature gets to her.

 

“Aren’t you supposed to be starved, fisher girl?” A voice too well know asks as she holds Emma by the shoulders. “Call to your stupid horse, I don’t think my wings are made for two.”

 

“Zelena?!”

 

“Sis!” She replies without turning to look at her. “Best use that shield to cover your face , wouldn’t want you turn to stone after what I’ve been through!”

 

Regina holds the shield up to her face and realizes that her sister is the creature whose head Poseidon had asked for. The one that could stop his monster and there is much she doesn’t understand. Not the horse’s reluctant dive when Emma whistles, or the angry hisses that come from Zelena’s head.

 

“What you’ve been through?!” Emma chides her when she Zelena drops her on the horse’s back.

 

“Aren’t you supposed to be flying away now?” Zelena retorts so carelessly that Regina knows it must feel like a dagger in her side.

 

“And leave you alone? I don’t think so.” Regina tells her from behind the shield.

 

“Honestly, I don’t know where this noble streak of yours comes from.” Zelena flies away from them. It’s only then that Regina lowers her shield and sees her the white of her wings and the green of her skin. One of them had been meant to die today.

 

“Same place as yours!” She shouts after her pressing her heels to the horse’s side to get him to follow.

 

“You’re just lucky I hate the gods, Regina!” Zelena dodges a hit from the monster.

 

It tries to swat at them as if they were flies but they are just fast enough to avoid his clumsy hits. Emma’s grip on her waist tightens and she smiles because prayers may not always be answered but when they are, they’re always Emma.

 

“I’ve missed you.” Emma confesses so quietly that it sounds like they’re sitting in the shell of their boat, not in the air facing death. “So much.”

 

“It’s been a long three days.” Regina admits raising her shield to block falling water. “The longest.”

 

“They’re about to be over.” Emma slaps the horse’s behind and it flies towards Zelena, who has almost reached the monster’s face.

 

He grabs at her sister, squeezing her wings together with its tentacles. When she should be screaming in pain she is laughing, delighted.

 

“Won’t you look at me, my pretty?” Her ribs are being pressed together but she is no less entertained

 

He sets his black eyes on her face and he belches another roar, not smart enough to understand what is happening to him. His face begins hardening with an invading white, he tries to release Zelena from his hold but it’s no use. He is stuck in his fate. Zelena never lowers her gaze and if she knows her, there must be a smug grin on her face. The whole of him turns white, as white as the cliffs of the island. Emma strikes the stone monster where it holds Zelena and she stretches her wings free. Crumbling pieces of him fall to the water, on the cliff where the priestess stood. She can hear the people scrambling to safety, some saying thanks and some others crying in terror.

 

“Are we going now?” Emma asks with her lips on her bare shoulder.

 

“Yes, yes we are.”

 

Regina presses the horse to go wherever the winds takes them. Emma smile grows on her skin until it becomes a kiss.

* * *

 

 

She can almost forget it, if she puts her mind to it. The way the ropes had cut into her skin, drums and eyes closed in supplication. It gets easier with every dawn, with the deep blue slowly fading away above them. Emma’s hair looks different in this light, like the finest silk. Regina has lost count of how many mornings it has been since they first found this island. Far beyond the World’s end, empty of people. Whenever they’d felt the warmth of the water hit their ankles and picked ripe fruit from the trees they had wondered if the gods knew about this this place. Not Zeus, not Poseidon could have thought it up.

 

“Hi.”  Emma says with eyes that are barely open. “Sun’s up.”

 

“Almost.” Regina breathes in the salt and sweet from her neck. “What should we do today?”

 

“Hmmm,” Her smile grows in mischief knowing just what there is to do. “I don’t know. Any ideas?”

 

“Well there is always…”

 

“What in Hades is that in the distance?” Zelena asks flying over them.

 

“Couldn’t you have asked Athena to let you keep your turning people into stone thing instead of your wings?” Emma groans spitting out the sand Zelena has stirred.

 

“And dare deprive us of the sight of her? Never.” Regina looking up at her sister.

 

“Well, I certainly don’t plan on being invaded today.” She has never known with her, what she means and what she doesn’t. “Best ready that sword of yours, fisher girl.”

 

“Zelena…”

 

“She’s not wrong.”  Regina admits looking at a speck on the water that is growing larger with each wave.

 

Emma sighs and Regina knows what she is afraid of, that their days here have finally come to an end. She fears the same every time the Sun sets. Reluctantly Emma gets up to unearth the sword she had buried when they first landed and straps it to her hip. Regina whistles for  Pegasus to come to her and he is too happy to spring out from his nest.  He bends his knees to let her on his back and stands ready to obey her directions.

 

“Traitor.” Emma says.

 

“I don’t believe it counts if he was never quite loyal to you.” Regina scratches his neck and he blows air through his nose in gratitude.

 

“I cannot believe I left my cave for _this_.” Zelena only mocks disgust as she flies ahead to face what seems to be a boat.

 

Regina watches her sister circle the boat just as she hears Emma unsheathing the sword she has yet to taint.

 

“Who do you think it is?” Emma asks.

 

“As long as it isn’t a boat full of bearded chins…”

 

Zelena returns completely unable to restrain her laughter, she flies past them into the heart of the island.

 

“That can’t be good.” Emma grips her sword tighter and runs to ambush the boat as it arrives on shore.

 

Regina hits her ankles against Pegasus’s side to make it rush to Emma. The boat is a small one. It sails has ripped and only the tides could have brought it here, perhaps by accident. There are only two people on board, cloaked in grey. One of them jumps off the boat with a certain ease that feels known to her.

 

“After all this time, you still can’t grip your sword properly.” Mulan’s voice rises above the waves.

 

“What do you say to another bet, Regina?” Marian says next revealing her face before joining them in the water. “Emma’s already got her sword out.”

 

Regina leaps from Pegasus and hugs her friend as tightly as she can manage.

 

“Happy to see us?” Marian sounds like her lungs are getting crushed and even then Regina doesn’t let go.

 

“How did you find us?”

 

“Placed our trust in the right places.” Mulan answers.

 

“Not the gods?” Emma swings an arm over Mulan’s neck with a content smile.

 

“Oh, we know better than that.” Marian replies after Regina releases her.

 

Nineteen, nineteen and Regina never thought this could be.

 

* * *

 

 

They hadn’t known how to make wine when they had first stumbled upon the vines curling and the grapes so ripe that they might burst. Regina had smiled even if the Sun shone in her eyes and had known it to be another gift. Their cloaks had turned a deep red when their feet had squeezed out all the juice. Emma had taken her hand and pulled her down with her. The red had gone everywhere in her body and perhaps just for a moment she had panicked thinking about ruined silk and lies in way of explanation. But then Regina had remembered blessings and their meaning when looking at Emma’s grin. She never busied herself with washing and twisting her cloak clean.

 

Tonight it’s the first taste of that evening, around a fire and too late into the night. As if times still matters out here.

 

“Congratulations, you’ve made vinegar.” Zelena smacks her lips after a sip, the green of her skin looking brown under the fire. “It’s got Ping singing. That’s something, I suppose...”  

 

“It’s Mulan!” She replies with an outrage that could never be without the wine.

 

“Watch yourself or she’ll never tell you anything again.” Marian warbs Zelena lacing their fingers together.

 

“What is the song about, anyway?” Regina asks her resting her head on Emma’s shoulder.

 

“Women,” Mukan tries and fails to fight her hiccups. “Girls, fighting for them. Something.”

 

Regina can feel laughter being born deep from Emma’s belly until it’s finally out her mouth, loud and untamed.

 

“Oh don’t you laugh, fisher girl.” Zelena says defensively with a lock of Mulan’s hair around her finger. “Like you didn’t go on a quest for my sister’s honor.”

 

Emma grows quiet and a drunk giggles come from Mulan even if she cups a hand to her mouth to stop them.

 

“She’s got you there.” Regina says quietly breathing her in.

 

“I can’t believe I brought you back with us.” Emma sips from the pouch and pinches her nose from the bitterness of the wine.

 

Regina smacks her arm knowing she had not really meant it, that she never means any of the things she says about Zelena.

 

“Not that I wouldn’t do it all over again.” Emma raises Regina’s hand to her lips and kisses the underside of her wrist.

 

“Ugh.” Zelena throws sand at them.

 

Emma lunges after her which just makes Zelena fly up and taunts her.

 

“Where is that horse when I need him?!” Regina hears Emma say after a few useless whistles.

 

Mulan chases after them mixing her languages with the wine. They become shadows away from the fire and under the moon, loud shadows that only pretend to shout at each other. Marian shakes her head as if either of them could truly disbelieve this moment.

 

“That went exactly as I thought it would.”  Marian sighs contently.

 

“It did.” Regina replies.

 

Twenty, she thinks she likes being twenty the best.

 

* * *

 

“Does this look straight to you?” Emma asks tilting her head to examine her work.

 

“Not entirely.” Regina wipes her hands on her cloak. Useless considering that she can feel mud and clay drying all over her skin. “Does it matter?”

 

“If you want an uneven roof, it doesn’t.” She mumbles absentmindedly already digging her hands into the clay to fix her mistake.

 

Her skin is gray up to her elbow and her hair is coming undone as she works on the last wall of their house. They had thought it up after having awoken one morning in each corner of the island and Regina had remembered weaving and slow burning fires. Remembered Hera and decided to draw a home right there on the sand.

 

“I think it’s done,” Emma smiles while holding her breath. “It’s done.”

 

Regina knows there is still an oven to shape and rugs to be made with whatever the island provides but she knows what Emma is saying. It had taken forgetting promises and supplications to remember that once, not so long ago, she had yearned for muddied hands. For sweat on her brow, it had been too easy in a place so full of life that had never made want for anything. But today with their hands rough with work and with sore arms that had brought it all back. It’d felt like each brick had been a prayer and Regina thinks that today she sees more than she’s ever had.

 

“Do you…” Emma snaps her out of her thoughts. “Is it good, you think?”

 

“We made it, didn’t we? Of course it is.” Regina tells her dipping a cloth into water. She doesn’t bother twisting before cleaning away the dirt on Emma’s neck.

 

“Gods...Regina!”

 

“Oh, hold still. Don’t tell me if it’s a wet rag that finally defeats you.” She pays her no mind and reaches her chest.

 

“It’s cold!”

 

“Stop making such a fuss, you’re not even flinching.” Regina rolls her eyes.

 

“Let’s see how you like it.”  She takes the rag from Regina’s hand and wipes at her forehead, at the quirk of her brow.

 

It stops being about dried clay on skin but they keep up that pretense. As if they were still two girls who don’t what to do with their hands. Emma laughs when the gray is washed away from her and Regina gasps when her cloak slips off her shoulders. Her fingers know the path to each freckle, each scar of Emma’s but the rest of her seems to be discovering it all over again. She cannot explain how is it that her smile grows so wide when the touch of her fingers on Emma’s bare and newly washed skin makes her flush. Regina has to wonder, for one breathless moment, what it must be like to be Emma. To be so completely unaware of how precious she is. Regina strives to let always remind her, never forget. The gods, the gods wouldn’t understand. They wouldn’t know about clinging to each other because maybe life does depend on it. No, this is far beyond them. Twenty-one and Regina is certain of only one thing. She whispers it against Emma’s lips.

 

“I know, I know.” Her voice is rough the way she never is.

 

Things are the way have been for years.

 

* * *

 

This time of day she remembers well, Apollo heading West and how Regina would race to the shore. Always worried about what little time she had left to swim deep to beg to be heard, to kiss Emma and hope. Hope. Only the color of the sky remains the same, the same one that has threading itself in Emma’s hairs for all these years. She looks at her now waist deep in the water with a spear in her hand determined to outfish Marian and her bow and arrow. Regina is hunting for crabs in the shore, chasing them and digging into the sand for them. A feast for everyone who now lives on the island. For the princess whose kingdom came attached to a husband, for the girl escaping the father who had traded her life for his, another princess whose prince did not much care if she was awake. A girl whose stepmother had taken her true name from her and replaced it with ash, even if her skin glows brown with the Sun. No one quite understands how is it that they find this island, if it’s the winds or the waters that bring them here. Perhaps it is just that they placed their trust in the right places.

 

Regina carefully places each crab into a basket at Pegasus’s side. He stomps his foot on the ground,impatient as he can be.

 

“Just a while longer.” She promises

 

“Is that for me or him?”  Emma kisses her cheek dumping her share of fish into another basket. “They still need to be cooked.”  

 

“Don’t pretend you haven’t been carrying and eating at least a half dozen figs.” She pokes at her ribs where she knows she keeps them hidden.

 

“That’s not true,” Emma cracks her back and plants her spear in the sand. “I haven’t got room for six.”

 

“Come night you will be too full to eat your own catch.” This earns Regina a tilt of Emma’s head. “You’re right, that is truly impossible.”

 

Emma pops a halved fig into her mouth, smiling with the deep red of it replacing her teeth, proving her point.

 

“Idiot.” Regina replies with every drop of affection she has.

 

An owl hoots just as a dove coos in a nearby tree. The owl seems to have broken beak and the dove seems to be poking it with its wing. They’re watching them and it’s only when they take flight towards the water that Regina understands who they are. She drops her basket as she chases after them.

 

“Regina, where are you going?!” Emma says running behind.

 

The water hits her knees and then her waist until the birds settle on something she can barely make out in this light. A small coffin, barely put together. Regina can feel the wax beginning to give in to the water as reaches for it.Wailing comes from it just as Emma lays her hand on the lid. She doesn’t know whose hand is it that opens it to reveal boy no more than a few days old. A narcissus lies at his feet, the smallest ones she has ever seen. Regina picks him up, cradling his head. His crying doesn’t stop, not even when Emma rubs his back with her thumb.

“That’s good. You’re doing good.”  Emma tells him her eyes brimming with tears.

 

Regina’s own eyes cannot contain themselves feeling his body grow warm against hers.

 

“He is.” She agrees and thinks twenty-two is worth every single year that came before it.

 

 

**THE END**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zafeiri=Blue. I had to translate her name to Sapphire because Blue just translated to Ble in Greek and it just sounded exactly how I feel about Blue.


End file.
